ALMOST FACE TO FACE

Almost Face to Face by Awgie Award winning playwright / actor Stephen House has its World Premiere at La Mama from September 17 to 28 as part of 2014 Melbourne Fringe.

Stephen spoke to Stage Whispers about his new play.

Stage Whispers: So, what is your new play about Stephen?

Stephen House: An unusual Australian travelling writer arrives in Dublin, falls into a crazy world of off-beat characters and bizarre situations, and writes it all down. Taking things as far as he possibly can, he realises that something has to change in regards to his ongoing indulgent and chaotic creative life; and through a series of circumstances he has the opportunity to finally face up to what he has become in life.

SW: That sounds quite intense. What is this work trying to say?

SH: Well I never try to send a message in my plays.  I’m interested in representing lives within our here and now, and in doing so explore the condition and experience of being a human. This piece (like much of my work) strays into more hidden territory. Darker corners, more edgy and less acceptable by society lifestyles drift into this piece, and create a foundation for the story to grow from.

SW: And these more edgy and unacceptable lives are?

SH: There is an element of sex work, but it isn’t all about sex work, at all. It is a part of the world that my characters in-habit. Drug culture, crime, and street hustling also roam throughout the story and setting, but these elements are just a part of the world; they are not all of the world. There is a woman battling her own situation in room above the River Liffy in Dublin. There a young male street hustler who wanders the board walk below, and there is an Aussie writer who has just arrived from Amsterdam, after a devastating situation in Paris, who falls headlong into the world that these unusual two, dwell in.

SW: So, why Dublin, and what inspired this piece, Stephen?

SH: A few years ago I won an Australia Council Irish literature residency, for an amazing extended stay, writing – in a place called The Tyrone Guthrie Centre. I wrote two new works there. An ABC Radio National commissioned radio play and a stage play for The Adelaide Festival Centre. They both went on to be produced. I also wrote the first draft of Almost Face To Face, in Dublin. This year I took it out, read it, really fell into it, and decided to finish it. A director in Adelaide read it and loved it, and then La Mama read it and said that they’d like to offer it a spot for Fringe… and here I am! Oh, yes, and I think the strange nature of the creative process (and my own writing time in Dublin) inspired it.  

Stephen House’s last monologue, Appalling Behaviour (set in Paris), premiered in Adelaide in 2010 and toured for three years. His next piece, New Delhi, scribed in India is in first draft. House’s process of living research for the inspiration and writing of his plays has seen him commissioned often over the years with 20 plays produced, many selected by The Australian Script Centre for publication.

La Mama, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton

September 17 – 28, 2014

Wed, Fri 6.30pm | Thu, Sat 8.30pm | Sun 4pm

Full $25 | Concession $15


www.lamama.com.au | 03 9347 6142