lally Katz was commissioned by Australia’s Belvoir Theatre to write a play but she spent the money visiting fortune tellers and psychics. Shrabasti Mallik comes to know from her and the executive director of the group that the play, Stories I Want to Tell You in Person is about those experiences
What would you do if you spend all the money that was given to you as a commission to write a playIJ And at the end you, instead of a script you have wonderful stories of your activities to recountIJ Simple, narrate those instances in a one act play.
This is exactly what Australia’s Belvoir Theatre has done with the play Stories I Want to Tell You in Person. When lally Katz was asked to write a play, she went to New York in search of one. But instead of focussing on finding a story on a fortune teller, she spent it on actually meeting them, meeting psychics and travelling. When she came back, all she had were these interesting stories to tell. So the stories were woven into a narrative and Katz was cast for the one woman play.
And she could not have been more excited. “I have never been on stage. The last time I was, I played a rabbit in an adaptation of a Frankenstein play,” she could not stop laughing. Katz has this amazing bubbling energy that does not fizzle out and perhaps that’s why she was an obvious choice. Just the way she recounted her experiences in NYC had us convinced. “The play was a no-brainer. And because lally is so charismatic and has such an amazing presence we felt it would be perfect to unleash her on the audience,” laughed Anne louise-Sarks, director.
“I was sort of trying to find a solution to be able to be a writer and to be able to have a love life, because it never works out. And then I met this psychic in New York named Cookie who told me that if I gave her a certain amount of money then I could have everything I dream of. And I said, ‘That sounds like a good deal.’ But then I got poor from paying her and she taught me how to curse. Meanwhile back in Australia I met someone and fell in love and then we broke up. So I went back to New York and saw her and all these other psychics. I gave them thousand of dollars and it worked for a while but not forever,” the playwright and the actor practically finished in one breath.
She spent quite a lot of her time with them and even secretly recorded them. “So that I could learn the way they talk,” she pointed out.
In the play, Katz also talks about many boyfriends that she has had, and also about friends in different places. “I had this boyfriend who was quite funny because most of the time he was in a bad mood but had a good heart. Then I had a Canadian cowboy boyfriend whom I met in Sydney and he was quite strange, too,” she said and added in quite a dramatic way, “Also I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
The play also has a character called the apocalypse bear. “We have a bear suit,” Katz added in a burst of energy. “I narrate about him, too. He is like a normal bear and he can talk, well, except in this play. I talk about the apocalypse and about how no one ever lets me have him. And through the gold curtain the bear pops and I go like, ‘He’s in, he’s in.’ And then when I am sad, he comes in and gives me a microphone to sing with and dances with me at the end of the play,” she sounded happy. “Here we will have the students of National School of Drama play the bear and will have five different bears,” said Brenna Hobson, executive director, Belvoir.
Ever since she can remember, Katz has wanted to write. She made up stories and during high school she even wrote plays for other kids to perform. “Well, at times I would join them, too,” she interrupted and continued, “But when I went to university I started putting on plays and putting them in fringe festivals and then I got commissioned. That’s all I think about — writing. I constantly write different plays.”
But that also demands that she create new characters. And she finds them in the people around her. “I find inspiration from life from the people around — people that I meet. The more I am out in the world, the less I make up. Mainly it would be men who I am in love with and write about them, which is never good for the relationship. Or women who are little bit mysterious like a witch around whom the atmosphere changes or who has a little bit of magic around them,” she pointed out.
Excerpts from the interaction with Hobson:
Belvoir Theatre was founded in 1984 and has grown in leaps and bounds in the past three decades…
It grew from being quite a small theatre with about five employees to having 44 times more, plus all of the actors who just come on board for one production. It’s much bigger than it used to be. There was a theatre company who moved out of the building we are in right now and it was almost about to get turned into an apartment. So people who worked with the arts all across Sydney got together and bought the building. So even if we move out, that building will always be there for the theatrics community. And over the time we have grown and have staged a range of plays. Everything from Chekhov and Shakespeare to our indigenous Australian plays, and we also we have been touring a lot since the last decade. lally’s play has been all over Australia and to New York and Mexico.
Is it still government fundedIJ
About half of our income comes from ticket sales and then 10 per cent from the Federal Government and another 10 per cent from the stage Government and the rest comes from philanthropy and donations and also people who support the arts and we also have set building workshops. We have government support which is really important. We also received a lot of support from the Australia India foundation and the High Commission.
What is the theatre scenario in Australia likeIJ
There are about eight theatre companies that are about as big as us all over the country. It’s a big country but not very many people in it. We still work on a format of subscription. We announce our calendar in September every year and people buy a package or may be everything. That is how most of the Australian industry works. It is a little different.
nAre people inclined towards theatre thereIJ
People get really passionate about theatre in Australia. like in places like london where everybody goes to the theatre, it is not like that. It is smaller group of people, and the people who love it, love it completely. We can fit about a 100,000 people in our theatre every year.
Stories I Want to Tell You in Person will be staged at the 18th Bharat Rang Mahotsav, tomorrow at 8:30pm