ATTEMPTS ON HER LIFE
by Martin Crimp
17 Scenarios For The Theatre
“No one will have directly experienced the actual cause of such happenings, but everyone will have received an image of them.’
-Jean Baudrillard
All Messages Deleted
Tragedy of Love & Ideology
Faith In Ourselves
The Occupier
The Camera Loves You
Mum & Dad
The New Anny
Particle Physics
The Threat of International Terrorism™
Kinda Funny
Untitled (100 Words)
STRANGELY!
Communicating With Aliens
Girl Next Door
The Statement
Pornò
Previously Frozen
CREDITS
Writer - Martin Crimp
Director/Video and Sound Designer - Saro Lusty-Cavallari
Producers - Claire Ferguson & Imogen Gardam
Assistant Director - Persephone Hitzke-Dean
Set and Costume Designer - Rita Naidu
Lighting Designer - Sam Read
Stage Manager - Charlie Breene
Production Photography - Clare Hawley
STARRING
Lucy Burke
Bridget Haberecht
Lucinda Howes
Josephine Lee
Ebony Tucker
Voice Messages - Jeremi Campese, Laura Djanegara, Nathalie Fenwick, Deborah Galanos, Jake Fryer-Hornsby, Saro Lusty-Cavallari, Berynn Schwerdt, Annie Stafford, Lachlan Stevenson and Anthony Yangoyan
This work was supported through Shopfront Arts Co-op's Open Shop program.
ABOUT THE PLAY
Excerpt from The Theatre Of Martin Crimp by Aleks Sierz
In 1997, Martin Crimp's masterpiece, Attempts on Her Life, was staged at the Royal Court Theatre, an event that secured his reputation as the most innovative, most exciting and most exportable playwright of his generation. For a play which satirises, among other things, media hype, it is fitting that it was produced in a cultural atmosphere that positively reeked of overstatement. In 1996, the media - led by Newsweek, Le Monde and London's Evening Standard - rebranded London as the 'capital of cool'. Within a couple of years, even Tony Blair was talking about Cool Britannia, the name given to this putative cultural renaissance. Britain was being hyped as a Young Country, and the inevitable assortment of scene-creamers was led by Culture Secretary Chris Smith, whose love letter to the creative industries, Creative Britain, sported a glossy Damien Hirst cover. But while Cool Britannia was principally about cultural industries such as Brit pop and frock flicks, traditional art forms such as theatre were soon swept up in the excitement. Whether on the superficial level of marketing, or because of a genuine creative upsurge, theatre was suddenly newsworthy again. Wherever you looked, there was a young dramatist eager to make a splash. As playwright David Edgar put it: 'Five years on from all the obituaries [of new writing], theatre is listed along with pop, fashion, fine art and food as the fifth leg of the new swinging London.' But while the arts media were busy looking for the next Sarah Kane or hot twenty-something writer, the best play of the decade was written by an experienced playwright who had spent nearly two decades honing his craft.
In the dying days of John Major's Tory government, a sorry tale of sleaze and continuous xenophobic clamour, Attempts on Her Life appeared as both a brilliantly original and a distinctly European play, both a comment on the late-twentieth century and a vision of what the theatre of the future might be. With its punning title -which also recalls Crimp's Orange Tree plays - the piece advertises itself as 'Seventeen scenarios for the theatre'. These seventeen scenes, which vary between extreme brevity and lengthier dialogue, each explore a different aspect of a woman called Anne (also Anya, Annie, Anny and Annushka) - who appears to be a complete enigma. She is the recipient of a variety of telephone messages, the heroine of a film, a victim of civil war, a typical consumer, a megastar, a tourist guide, a make of car, a physicist, an international terrorist, an American survivalist, an artist, a refugee's dead child, a victim of aliens, the girl next door, the object of a police investigation, a porn star, and the subject of a conversation among friends. During the play, the people talking about her include Mum and Dad, art critics, official interrogators, border guards, advertisers, film-makers, spin doctors, showbiz performers, abusive stalkers, lovers and friends. In geographic range, she skips across the globe, with mentions of distant continents, as well as European capitals and North African countries. Her age fluctuates between teenage and forty; she's both a single woman and a mother. In Girl Next Door', the idea of her fluid identity reaches a hilarious climax when she is described as everything from a cheap cigarette' to a dyke with a femme’.
The play is the culmination of Crimp's quest to marry form and content. With enormous imaginative flair, his text indicates where one speech begins and ends, but doesn't assign them to named characters, leaving it to the director and actors to distribute the lines. Although the cast should reflect the composition of the world beyond the theatre' (p. 202), the number of actors is not specified. Nor is their gender indicated, although in some scenes, such as Mum and Dad', it can easily be inferred. Similarly, the scenes are not random: they refer to each other and quote each other, and some motifs occur again and again. Above all, the play's daring form is symmetrical: two scenarios, both played in a foreign language with a translation, occur near the beginning and the end of the play; and there are two rhymed scenes, The Camera Loves You' and Girl Next Door'. Two scenarios, Faith in Ourselves' and 'Strangely!' are episodes from the same story. Some scenes, such as the car advert and The Occupier' involve using words from real advertisements or those printed on products, a kind of objet trouve. But although the play does include a diversity of voices, most notably that of the mother of the American survivalist in Scenario 10, the recurring tone is that of today's art-makers, creatives and commentators - who all sound the same.
REMEMBERING KXT
As fortune would have it Attempts On Her Life is the final production to be held at Kings Cross Theatre. Montague Basement have produced work in collaboration with bAKEHOUSE at this venue for over six years and five productions. We couldn’t be prouder to close out this iteration of a venue that has meant so much to our existence as a company. To honour the occasion, director Saro Lusty-Cavallari penned a reflection on the venue for - the coincidentally also closing - Audrey Journal.
All good eulogies start with an anecdote. A seemingly slight memory that seems to encapsulate what you’ll miss most about something you love.
For me and my relationship with KXT (the common abbreviation of the Kings Cross Theatre), I can’t go past the closing night of our 2021 play, Videotape.
The first play staged in the theatre after the 2020 lockdown, we had been playing our entire season to a capped 40-person audience arranged in a checkerboard pattern. The socially distanced and masked audience were only made more unnerving by the fact that they were facing one another.
If COVID had made going to the theatre a bit strange, at KXT it was downright surreal. But on our final night restrictions had been slightly eased and 75 percent capacity was put in place. The theatre was so ‘full’ that I, the writer and director, had to observe the show from the bio box; and I think it was the most I’ve ever enjoyed watching my own work.
For anyone who has never been backstage at KXT, the bio box is accessed by wading through a sea of as much equipment as the tiny space can store and is situated directly under the air conditioning vent which turns the space into something best described as a fridge.
To my right, my stage manager Claire Ferguson was bravely operating the show’s complex series of sound and video cues from underneath several layers of thermal clothing, like the control operator at an arctic base.
To my left was our ‘surprise’ performer Laura Djanegara, who did not appear until the final scene and had developed a routine of warming herself with a hot tea and blanket while watching Parks & Recreation on an iPad in one hand and furiously participating in Pokemon GO raids in the other.
It was a bizarre little viewing room we had for ourselves and most strangely of all no stage manager can actually see the stage from within that bio box. Instead we watched the performance on the hotel’s security monitors, piping in an eerily removed monochrome view of what was already designed to be an unsettling thriller of a play.
Seeing live theatre through the lens of Kings Cross pub security is not usually considered a ‘treat’ for most theatremakers but being able to watch – in nightvision – my cast cautiously step through their transitions in pitch darkness or zoom in on an audience member gleefully grabbing hold of her friend at every scary moment was something else.
Those cameras were a patchwork solution to the kind of problem that crops up in pop-up venues that grow to become much more than pop-up. And like so many of these little quirks they become a part of the space’s identity that artists and technicians throughout Sydney latch onto.
REVIEWS
“Strange, confronting and wildly funny… what a way to kiss goodbye.”
“Montague Basement delivers a provocative and sophisticated performance of a story that we may never understand, about a character who we never meet, in a theatre that will soon close its doors. A fitting farewell to KXT’s home in The Cross.”
“Montague Basement presents a stellar production that shows the possibility of what independent theatre can achieve.”
“Baffling, infuriating, all seeing and unknowable, ATTEMPTS ON HER LIFE, is a marvellous play on words and a kick in the head to those philistines who perpetuate the myth that theatre should be brainless.”
“Videotape is a fun return to theatre that successfully engages its audience in exploring why we are drawn towards the mysteries of other people’s lives when we shy away from our own ugly truth”
“This current production of Crimp's classic play will grab your attention and make you realise that this type of postmodernist live theatre is the antidote to a world of mass produced emotions and thoughts.”
“Certainly like nothing I’d ever seen before.”
“Video features prominently, and Lusty-Cavallari’s work in that arena is admirably precise, incorporating a sense of technical proficiency for the medium, to provides unexpected polish to the experience.”
CAST & CREW
CHARLOTTE BREENE - STAGE MANAGER
Charlotte Breene is a Sydney based Stage Manager who has recently graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Sydney and received her Certificate III in Live Production and Services in 2016. Charlotte recently served as the Stage Manager for Son of Byblos (2022) with Belvoir 25A and her recent previous credits include working with The House that Dan Built for their productions of Bagatelle (2021), SALT (2019) and Dancing with Drip Poles (2018) and KXT bAKEHOUSE’s Surf Seance (2019).
LUCY BURKE - PERFORMER
Lucy is a recent graduate from the Actors' Centre Australia. Whilst at ACA, Lucy’s roles have included Hamlet in Hamlet (dir. Anthony Skuse), Agamemnon and Professor in The Iphigenia Quartet (dir. Claudia Barrie), Betty Four in Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties (dir. Troy Harrison), Olga in Three Sisters (dir. Sam Trotman) and Alice in Closer (dir. Sammy Jing at NIDA/ACA collaborative project). Lucy also directed A Mouthful of Birds as part of the ACA self-generated project.
Prior to this, she was a part of Cleansed and Nosferatu (both Montague Basement, dir. Saro Lusty-Cavallari). She also performed in many shows for the Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS): some of her roles including Nina in The Seagull (dir. Victor Kalka) and Jessica in The Merchant of Venice (dir. Peter Walsh & Clare Cavanagh), while also featuring in The Sydney University Womens’ Revue (Sydney Comedy Festival) and The Sydney University Arts Revue (Seymour Centre).
As well as a performer, Lucy is a keen writer, singer and director with a passion for devising theatrical works
MARTIN CRIMP - PLAYWRIGHT
Martin Crimp was born in 1956. His plays include Three Attempted Acts (1985), Dealing with Clair (1988), Play with Repeats (1989), No One Sees the Video (1991), Getting Attention (1992), The Treatment (1993, winner of the John Whiting Award), Attempts on her Life (1997) and The Country (2000). He has translated or adapted work by Ionesco ( The Chairs, 1997), Genet ( The Maids, 1999) and Moliere ( The Misanthrope, 1996).His work in the UK has been produced by the Orange Tree Theatre, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Stephen Joseph Theatre, the RSC, the Young Vic and the Royal Court, where he was writer-in-residence in 1997. In New York his work has been seen at the Public Theater and the Classic Stage Company, as well as on Broadway.
CLAIRE FERGUSON - PRODUCER
Claire Ferguson was born at a very young age and grew up to be a Sydney-based stage manager, writer and producer. She graduated from Charles Sturt University with a Bachelor of Communications (Theatre/Media) in 2017. Since then, she has worked for companies such as Sport for Jove, National Theatre of Parramatta, Gilded Balloon (UK), Visible Fictions (UK), Opera Australia, Griffin Lookout and Pinchgut Opera. After stage managing for Montague Basement previously, Claire now joins the team as a producer.
IMOGEN GARDAM - PRODUCER
Imogen Gardam is co-founder and co-director of Montague Basement, producing the group's 18 productions since formation in 2014. She is the Senior Producer at Griffin Theatre Company and has worked in theatre and film for Bell Shakespeare, Hopscotch Features, Entertainment One Australia and The Festivalists. Imogen is a graduate of Media and Communications from the University of Sydney and is currently completing a Masters of Research in Film Studies. She is also one half of independent company FERVOUR., most commonly found on producing duties. Imogen was the 2018 winner of the Rose Byrne Scholarship for an Emerging Female Leader in the Arts, and served on the Board and as Deputy Chair for Theatre Network NSW from 2018-2020. Imogen has been published in Lumina Journal, Audrey Journal, Honi Soit and on Four Three Film.
BRIDGET HABERECHT - PERFORMER
Bridget Haberecht is a recent addition to Australian stages, after fleeing New York last year. She received MFA (Acting) from Harvard University (American Repertory Theatre) in 2018, where her roles included Emily in Our Town, Macduff in Macbeth and, career-highlight, ‘Goose’ in Charlotte’s Webb. She also spent four months in Russia studying at the Moscow Art Theatre School, where she played Nina in The Seagull.
Other credits include: Much Ado About Nothing, Antigone (Staten Island Shakespeare Company); Little Women (Merrimack Repertory Theatre); Mary Rose: The Girl Who Died Twice (Soho Shakespeare Company); An Evening With John Wayne Gacy Jr. (Infinite Abyss Productions); Making Porn: 25th Anniversary Production (Wilton Theatre Factory); 57 Carnations (Fresh Fruit Queer Play Festival).
They were a founding member and dramaturg of The Journalists theatre collective in New York and made their Australian theatre debut at The New Theatre earlier this year in Breaking the Code (dir. Anthony Skuse). Bridget is a proud member of MEAA. She would like the acknowledge she lives on the stolen land of the Gadigal people.
PERSEPHONE HITZKE-DEAN - ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Graduating from QUT’s Fine Arts (Drama) degree in 2018, Persephone worked across Brisbane including assistant directing and stage managing Cluedo! The Interactive Game with Brisbane Immersive Ensemble, assistant directing House of Mirrors and Hearts with Kleva Hive, producing Contact with Cycles in Sync for Anywhere Festival, and interning with Playlab Theatre. Moving to Sydney in mid-2019 she worked for Sydney Theatre Company and the Australian Chamber Orchestra across both Box Office and Development. In 2022 she has worked with Belvoir, Sydney Festival, and Sydney Writers' Festival in ticketing, in addition to working with Phoenix Central Park as Stage Manager, and assistant directing Attempts On Her Life with Montague Basement.
LUCINDA HOWES - PERFORMER
Lucinda Howes has been performing in the Sydney theatre scene since 2014. She completed WAAPA’s three-year acting program in 2019, and despite graduating into a COVID filled 2020, has been lucky enough to perform in multiple productions in the past two years. In 2021, she appeared in ‘Twelfth Night’ (New Theatre) ‘Videotape’ (KXT, Montague Basement) and ‘Fuente Ovejuna!’(Dream Plane Productions). In 2022, she will play Nina in Bagryana Popov’s production of ‘The Seagull’ with La Mama Theatre in Melbourne and is performing in Sport For Jove’s HSC Shakespeare Symposium Series throughout the year.
JOSEPHINE LEE - PERFORMER
Josephine Lee is a multidisciplinary artist and audio producer who aspires to combine her passion of theatre, sound design, film making, and science within her storytelling. She aims to create thought-provoking works that speak to the hearts of diverse communities in Australia and to enhance science communication. Throughout her career she’s worked as a director, actor, producer, sound designer, flyers and lighting technician assistant and in other behind the scenes roles.
Her acting credits include As You Like It (Sport for Jove Theatre Company) Julius Caesar (Little Spirits Theatre Company), That Venezuelan Place (Sydney University Dramatic Society), Shakeflix and A Time of Change (Sport for Jove Second Age Project). Her producing credits include Short and Curly Bites (ABC), Midsummer Madness, Things I Know To Be True (Sydney University Dramatic Society).
SARO LUSTY-CAVALLARI - DIRECTOR/VIDEO AND SOUND DESIGNER
Saro is a Sydney-based theatre director, the co-founder and co-director of Montague Basement and a graduate of VCA’s Masters of Directing for Performance. His independent work in Sydney includes Videotape (KXT), Sarah Kane’s Cleansed (PACT), Nosferatu: A Fractured Symphony (Old 505) and Animal Farm (New Theatre). He will direct The Great Australian Play by Kim Ho for Red Line Productions at the Old Fitz in 2022. He has interned with some of Australia’s leading directors including Peter Evans, Leticia Cáceres and Eamon Flack.
RITA NAIDU - SET AND COSTUME DESIGNER
Rita is a multidisciplinary designer working in Production Design for stage, screen and styling. Graduating with a Bachelor of Industrial Design (Honours) in 2019 from Western Sydney University; majoring in design-led innovation and management, Rita has always been drawn towards uniqueness and finds excitement in learning what makes something different and special. In 2020, Rita completed the MFA Design for Performance at NIDA, specialising in Costume Design. Rita designed costumes for A Pox on Both Your Houses (NIDA Digital Theatre Festival) and When the Rain Stops Falling (NIDA Season 2 Productions). During her industry placement, she assisted Costume Designer; Mel Page, for Stop Girl (Belvoir St Theatre). At the end of 2021, she was invited back to NIDA as the guest designer for the graduating actors’ Showcase. Recently, she was chosen for Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta Creative Futures Program as the Assistant Production Designer to James Browne for Guards at the Taj. Rita is currently designing Attempts on her Life (Kings Cross Theatre). Empathy is a core value in the way Rita engages in her relationships. She is always eager to collaborate and work across diverse genres, styles and communities.
SAMMY READ - LIGHTING DESIGNER
Sammy Read is a production designer & visual artist based in NSW. Graduating from the University of Wollongong with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Theatre) in 2018, Sammy works as a lighting designer, production manager and visual artist. As a designer, Sammy is interested in intimate spectacle, a style characteristic he carries through all creative work in both his theatre and visual arts practices. Recent Lighting Design includes FLEDGLING (KXT, 2022), TEMPLE (PACT, 2022), STONE(Wagga Regional Art Gallery, 2019), THE GREAT ATTRACTOR NO. 3 (De Quincey Co. 2019). Lighting realisation includes THE RIVOLI (2022 Regional Tour), DOUBLE DELICIOUS (2022 Regional Tour), WHEREVER SHE WANDERS-Lighting Associate (Griffin Theatre Co, 2021).
EBONY TUCKER - PERFORMER
Ebony Tucker was born and raised in Victoria on Boon Wurrung land. She has recently obtained a BFA in Acting from NIDA, her credits while training include; Maria/Marge in 'Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play' (dir. Alex Berlarge), 'Perfect Stranger' by Hilary Bell (dir. Kate Champion), Catherine in 'A View from the Bridge' (dir. Ed Wightman), Helena in 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' (dir. Sean Stewart), and Varya in ‘The Cherry Orchard’ (dir. Jeremy James.) Ebony most recently appeared at Bondi Festival in ‘Cool Pool Party : The Second’ (dir. Antoinette Barbouttis).
While still in Victoria Ebony studied Classical Text as a Graduate player at The Australian Shakespeare Company, touring domestically, before heading to Prague in 'The Comedy of Errors' (dir. Kevin Hopkins).
Ebony is also an established Voice Over artist, and a member of the MEAA. She would like to acknowledge and thank the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation for allowing us to story tell and create on their land. Always was, always will be.
SPECIAL THANKS
Belvoir St. Theatre
Bell Shakespeare
Sydney Festival
Grace Deacon
Tyler Fitzpatrick
Robbie James
Dom Mercer
Emily Stokes
Christopher Wale
Jacqueline Walker
