Something Dark Down Under

Rockford Hotel. Adelaide Australia. The phone rings “lemn” says nadia my tour manager “Lemn I have been banging on your door for ten minutes” It’s not a problem I think “cool I will be down stairs in 5 minutes”. Nadia gasped “it’s 7pm and there is a capacity audience waiting for you”. You have never seen a man move so quickly. Fortunately the hotel is on eminute from my hotel.

I fell asleep. Jet lag caught up with me. I throw on some clothes race to the theatre for six minutes past seven. Costume. Mild panic backstage. at nine minutes past the audience hushes. At nine minutes and thirty seconds The music comes on – that’s my cue – and at ten past seven I step onto the stage. I turn to the audience and all the lights switch off “Dark. In darkness always comes the question where is the light?” and Something Dark begins.

It’s an out and out success and ends to rapturous applause and a standing O. The play is seventy minutes with a break followed by a thirty minute Question and Answer Session. It is never the same. It reveals itself each time through each moment.

Afterwards I attend dinner with Author Peter Goldsworthy and anthologist and anthropologist Lisa Temple, author and journalist Michael Jacobs and head of the Bob hawke Institute Elizabeth Ho, Vice Chancellor and president Peter Hø Pro vice chancellor Pal Ahluwalia an expert on African Literature and friend of Ngugi Wa Thiong O. All was incredibly well. We were all enlivened. This is what I do. This is what I love. I NEVER sleep on the job. I won't beat myself up over ten minutes.


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