Andrew Bovell - Things I Know To Be True

I grew up on a communal property that sits on the dividing line between the Southern Vales and the Adelaide Hills in a small town called Kangarilla. A short drive towards the coast sits the Willunga Range that Andrew Bovell now calls home, and a bit further on the spread of Adelaides southern suburbs, Seaford, Noarlunga, Christies Beach and Hallett Cove. The area has become a strange amalgam: the vales contain bohemian wine agriculture and a smattering of tree-changed artists, while the southern suburbs hold much of Adelaides working-class community. Hallett Cove and the burbs that surround it are the stuff of a white-bread Australian dream, filtered through John Howards relaxed and comfortable view of the country. Sweep upon sweep of almost identikit houses, communities in which you become immediately isolated if you dont have a car and the dream of a bit more, but not too much. Andrew and I first started talking about him writing a new play for State Theatre Company in 2013 soon after Id come back into the Company as its new Artistic Director.

Over a series of coffees and many emails we thrashed out the landscapes that we might adventure through. In 2011 Id directed a revival of Andrews play Speaking in Tongues and it signified the start of a series of projects for me that concentrated on taking emotional, deeply intimate material and introducing a sense of the visual epic to it. It was a cracking open of the play that, I think, we both enjoyed. As we talked about possible new plays, Andrews ambition to push his writing and process even further out of his comfort zone steadily solidified. He wanted me to find a fresh way to disrupt his usual creative process. At the same time I was having a separate conversation with an artist Ive long admired: Scott Graham, the Artistic Director of Frantic Assembly.

Id connected with Scott and Frantic on and off over the previous decade over email, through observing their rehearsals and, eventually, assisting Scott and then co-Artistic Director Steven Hoggett on Abi Morgans Lovesong. After Steven left the company to pursue his freelance career I jokingly said to Scott that if he was ever looking for someone to co-direct with in the future I was only a phone call away. It didnt take much of a leap to realise that Scott might be the perfect disruptive influence for Andrew. The strands began to draw slowly together. Along with designer Geoff Cobham, the three of us discovered a shared love for the photos of Gregory Crewdson. suburbia to find something alien and powerful in the heart of those left behind by the clichd American dream. suburbia to find something alien and powerful in the heart of those left behind by the clichd American dream.

We wanted to find a way of excavating the layers of Australian and English culture in the same way, to look for the anxiety that exists under seeming lands of plenty. With little more than this, we decided to just dive in. In 2014 the four of us gathered together in a rehearsal room with six actors who Andrew and I thought it would be interesting for him to write for: Alison Bell, Paul Blackwell, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Eugenia Fragos, Luke Mullins and Nathan OKeefe. They were asked to bring a scrap of writing, a picture and a piece of music that meant something to them. Not exactly a specific brief. Over the next week we talked, trained, let improvisations often play out over the course of hours, and looked for interesting ways to combine movement and a sense of the visual epic with text.

All the while we hunted for the thinnest of connecting threads that might lead us to the beginnings of narrative or character. Surrounding us on the walls of the room were the images from Crewdsons Beneath the Roses series, which often became trigger points for exercises or somewhere to retreat to in the moments when we had no idea which direction to take next. It was by turns exhilarating, frustrating and deeply inspiring and reminded all of us of what special creatures actors are: they can create gold dust out of next to nothing. At the end of the week Andrew quietly took Scott and I aside and said simply, I think theyre a family. With that, the world of the Prices was born. Andrew has long been a master of charting the dreams were sold and the difficult and often tawdry outcomes of straining to achieve them.

In Things I Know To Be True he skilfully dissects the differing dreams recent Australian generations have had pushed upon them. The working-class baby boomers have been encouraged to defer their lives; to sacrifice now for a comfortable old age and the pleasure of seeing their children have more opportunities than they did. Gen X, Y and the millennials have all been told in different ways that they can (as Fran says in the play): Have what you want, you can be what you want. No matter what the cost. As the boomers move into their twilight years, the inter-generational tension is palpable. Andrew is a writer obsessed with our struggle to love and with dissecting all of the wonderful and terrible things we do in loves name.