18.09.12
Next up, Sam Strong directs his final play as Griffin Artistic Director – Ian Meadows’ searching new play Between Two Waves. A politically charged relationship drama which explores one of the most pressing issues of our time, we asked Ian to tell us what prompted him to write the play.
Between Two Waves began bouncing around in my head when a friend told me about a guy who’d just lost his family in a car accident. He was at home devastated when he received a call from a telemarketer asking him “how are you today?” He told her exactly how he was, she was stunned, and as result they ended up speaking for hours. At least that’s what I remember the story being. The reality may bear only a vague resemblance to that. As the play explores, memory is slippery. So I began writing around the idea of a chance bureaucratic conversation in a very personal moment. I was in between the end of one relationship and the beginning of another so it took on biographical significance around the rise and disintegration of love. At the same time a lot of my friends were dealing with the generational malaise that seemed to stem almost entirely from problems with fathers – suppressed during adolescence only to bubble up in people’s 30’s as they faced parenthood themselves. Then there were the terrifying climate change books that made me wonder why we didn’t seem too concerned about toasting our only planet to death on fossil fuels. Out of this morass of guilt and responsibility and fear and the future emerged the story as it exists here.
I was thrilled by the idea of putting it on with Sam at Griffin. The Stables is the perfect venue for the show because of it’s intimacy and intensity. The play is designed to be as visceral and naturalistic as possible and allows actors and designers the opportunity to have the most immediate connection to an audience. Performance can be filmic in style because there isn’t the technical necessity to reach an audience that there is in a bigger space. I’m excited that Between Two Waves can join the stables’ canon of raw new Australian work.
Between Two Waves plays at the Stables from 6 October. For more information and to book tickets, click here.
