Last week Imogen Sabey spoke with Alana Valentine, Australian playwright and writer of Griffin’s play Nucleus, which debuts on the 14th of February at the Seymour Centre. Imogen Sabey and Charlotte Saker will be reviewing the play during its season.
Honi Soit: Hi Alana! Thank you for joining us today. Firstly, could you please tell us what the play Nucleus is about?
Alana Valentine: Okay, so Nucleus has been described to me as a nuclear-power romcom, which is a good brief description of it. I can’t tell you a lot about what is in it because it’s actually a series of reveals, but the director Andrea James said at the launch of the play, “A nuclear engineer and an anti-nuclear campaigner walk into a bar… boom, boom.” Which I think is also very funny. It’s about two people who passionately disagree with each other, and how they negotiate that relationship. Like I say, I can’t give too much away, but the moniker ‘romcom’ will tell you a little.
HS: That sounds amazing! I didn’t really expect this kind of genre mash. And when you had this idea and you were working on it, did it take you a long time between that idea sparking and putting it to paper?
AV: It really did, Imogen. I mean, I’ve been working on it for about five years, a little over that, and I lived sometimes down near Jervis Bay, which is on the south coast. That was the proposed site of the nuclear power station in the late 60s, early 70s – ‘69, it was stopped in ‘71. I’d always been interested in it, and I started interviewing activists who live in that area. There’s been a lot of environmental activism in Australia but particularly on the south coast, and some of it has been around nuclear power. And so I was meeting all of these old radicals and I started to think, wow, this is a really interesting play – and then I spoke to someone who had been involved with that power station proposal, and then have subsequently met a lot of pro-nuclear scientists, and I guess what inspired me is this idea of whether you can actually have a friendship or whatever it turns into with someone with whom you passionately disagree.
HS: Right. And were there any other works that inspired you as you were writing it, or did the ideas come directly from talking to those people?
AV: Yeah, it is actually a fictional play, and it’s not based on any real one person living or dead, but there have been a lot of works of theatre where you start off thinking one thing and then you suddenly realise that it’s a whole ‘nother play – I mean, that’s what everyone who reads this play does – they pick it up, and they think ‘Oh, I know what this is gonna be, this is gonna outline the arguments’ and then they start turning the pages and they’re like ‘What? This is really something else.’
There’s a lot of precedent for that in thrillers, it’s kind of that thriller structure, but I’ve been inspired by a lot of international plays that do that – Carol Churchill is one of my favourite playwrights, and she often doesn’t tell you where the characters are, or what they think, and she mixes non-naturalism with naturalism, and that’s in this play as well. It’s not really what I’d call a piece of naturalism.
HS: You’ve mentioned how it’s a romantic comedy; when you started, did you set out for it to become a romantic comedy or was that something that naturally evolved?
AV: Look, I probably should call it a romantic dramedy rather than a comedy, because it is more of a drama, but there’s no real genre, so I’ve been saying romcom because it is very funny. But candidly, the end of the play is incredibly moving. Like, people have told me that they cry when they read the page. I think what I set out to do is what all drama should do, which is not try to answer any questions but to have faith that the audience are interested not just in the issues but in the human face of these issues.
What really has deeply inspired me about theatre is that it remains a place where the contest of ideas can still be held, with respect and with honour, and that as a playwright it’s your job to actually hold two things – in this case, two very strong opinions – in your head at the same time, and trust that your audience can also do that and then come out and talk to their friends or compare it with their own life.
I just think that we’re desperate for places where we can do that these days, where somebody doesn’t have to already have an opinion about something to be admitted to saying something. I really feel like theatre can still be a place where you can actually show all the sides of something and trust that the audience will put it together.
HS: I think that’s really wonderful, I agree with that. It’s so nice to see everyone coming together and clashing, disagreeing fiercely, and seeing the beautiful things that come out of that. So when you interviewed these people who are really pro- and anti-nuclear energy, what was it like to see all that passion and those strong opinions clashing with each other?
AV: Well, one of the first things was that they – particularly the pro-nuclear scientists – were used to being attacked, I guess. They would say to me ‘So what side are you on, Alana?’ and I’d say ‘Well, it’s a playwright’s job not to take sides’ and they’d say ‘Yeah, we don’t believe that.’ And I’d say ‘Put it this way, I’m more interested in you than in the ideas, in the issues.’
And the same with the anti-nuclear scientists, I’d say ‘What would you do if your granddaughter became pro-nuclear?’ ‘Oh, that wouldn’t happen.’ ‘But what if it did?’ ‘Oh, that wouldn’t happen.’ And so what I saw was the same degree of extremism, the same intransigence on both sides. Both were utterly dogmatic about the fact that they wouldn’t change their position and no-one they knew would think anything different to them. And as I gradually scraped away at them, one of the pro-nuclear scientists said ‘My children have joined the Greens, and we don’t talk about it.’ And they started to admit that, particularly in families, there can be disagreement. And it was one of the great highlights of my life to be able to persuade them to tell me honestly what they thought, without constantly checking in on whether I was going to stand up and throw my hands into the air.
So it was fantastic. I think that it’s my obligation to create credible characters. I’ve kind of bower-birded little bits of the professional organisations that they are part of, where they might’ve gone to uni, stuff like that – just to give their characters real credibility so that people who come from the industry will go ‘Oh, yeah, they could be part of that.’ But I’m hoping that I’ve sufficiently blended and adjusted it so that it’s not recognisably any two actual people.
HS: And speaking of the people, in your cast you’ve got Paula Arundell and Peter Kowitz, and that’s it! What was it like working with them, and having such a small cast?
AV: Well, two things. As a writer, you’ve just got to be throwing stories, conflicts, new bits, new reveals at them the whole time because there’s only two people on stage, so you’ve got to have it ticking over all the time. But the great thing about having two actors who pretty much never go off the stage, is that they just show you everything they’ve learned in their whole careers. So Paula is sexy, she’s cool, and what’s so great about Paula too is that there’s moments where you go ‘Not sure if I agree with you or if I even like you, but damn, you’re incredibly fascinating so I’ve just got to keep watching you.’ And I’ve worked with so many actors in my life, but she is really just amazing. Peter is every bit her equal, he’s drawing this portrait of a man who’s just so fixed but he’s also got an innocence, this sincerity that’s really disarming. Oh, I’ve just been in heaven. They’re never off the stage, so they show you everything they can do. And that’s why we go to the theatre as much as anything, isn’t it – to see actors, one minute they’re sweet and lovely, and the next they’re monstrous.
HS: Did you feel like you were being pushed as a playwright by working with such talented people?
AV: Always. And that’s what you want. Sometimes there’ll be lines that you’ll think the writers will need so that they can show a particular emotion – because what’s happening in a play is of course, not what they’re saying, but what’s happening underneath what they’re saying. It’s all the emotional subtext of what they’re saying. You cut bits of the lines. And other times, you take it right up to the moment where they’re about to say something and then they don’t, and so I write into that, because I can see that no amount of them showing it is gonna win.
What I love about working with actors is that dance. I’m a real polisher. I’m a dressmaker, I make all my own clothing. And I talk about the rehearsal processes, adjusting the script to fit the actors, like fitting the dress on the actors. That’s why it’s always so amazing to have the actors who create the roles. For me to get the calibre of actors like Paula and Peter at Griffin, even though Griffin commands a lot of respect, it’s a smaller theatre. These actors know that everything is defined by what they’ve done.
HS: In comparison to other plays that you’ve written, do you feel like Nucleus was in your comfort zone or out of left field?
AV: No, it’s definitely out of my comfort zone. Although, I’ve always talked about verbatim as being a scale, so on one end you have pure verbatim, where you have people on stage, sometimes with headphones in, or they’re reading transcripts, and I call that pure verbatim. And right on the other end is complete fiction. With Nucleus I wanted to create fictional characters so I could put them through the ringer. They’re not voices that are unheard, in fact it’s the opposite. We’re bludgeoned with these pro- and anti-nuclear stances in the media, and I wanted poetic voices, voices that had an originality and a humanity that you rarely see in the public domain. A lot of my work in more recent years has been libretti, for opera, and I’ve been working towards a more poetic version of my writing. I like to think Nucleus did stretch me, because it’s also not naturalistic. Some of the time, the audience is going ‘Where are we? And who are they speaking to?’ Not in a confused way, but some of it happens like a dream, almost in a Beckett world.
HS: Was it fun to experiment with those genres, stretching and bending it around?
AV: Oh, there’s no greater thrill than working in theatre.
HS: I bet!
AV: It never gets old. Actors do these things where you’ve written stuff on the page and they give you that, then they run around the block with it. And you go ‘Oh my lord, look what’s inside them.’ We had a donor event and we didn’t just present something to the donors, we did one of the scenes, and we did it three or four different ways and the donors were like ‘Oh! I see, there’s not just one way to do this!’ And we were like, ‘No! There’s two hundred ways to do this!’
HS: And that’s just with one actor.
AV: That’s right! And then you get different actors. Making live theatre, and being in a room with someone doing that with their body and their voice, it’s magical in a way that only strikes you once you go into a theatre. We’re so used to now deciding what we want to see or what stories we want to hear based on the synopsis, and yet the story itself is only part of it.
HS: So it sounds like it’s a really rewarding experience, but it also sounds challenging. Could you tell us about some of the challenges you faced?
AV: The real pressure is on the director, because you’ve got four weeks to rehearse and maybe a week of tech before you go into previews.
HS: Wow, I didn’t realise it was that short.
AV: A month to learn, and that’s only two characters onstage learning ninety minutes of talking. So the challenges are that the decisions start coming at you in a rush. For the writer, you’ve got the actors there and they’re going ‘Well, are we keeping this or are we cutting it?’ You have a little bit of time, and a good director will say ‘Let Alana go away and think about that,’ and I do demand that.
But part of it is the challenge, that you have to be on 100% of the time. Plus you’re doing publicity, you’re writing stuff, you’re talking to people, all of that. You’re also doing other work, maybe, commissioned work. So the demands on a playwright are quite considerable. People think ‘Oh, you write it and that’s the end of it.’ It absolutely isn’t. You’re polishing it for quite a long time, doing all these other things.
So the challenge is getting all that done in a short period of time. It is still very hard for any playwright to get a play onstage. You think that once you’ve had a few on, you go further up in the queue. That’s not necessarily the case. But I’m really aware of how hard it is for younger playwrights and other playwrights to get their work on stage; it is still for me too. And for female playwrights it’s very hard, and people of colour. You start to think ‘Oh, that’s all solved, we’ve had those conversations’, but it’s not, it’s an ongoing challenge.
HS: Does the theatre industry feel like a collaborative process? Are you engaging with other playwrights beyond the projects that you’re currently working on?
AV: I so am. I’ve been on the national executive of the Australian Writers’ Guild for sixteen years, I’ve just recently come off, but they have lunchtime seminars where writers can come in and listen to experienced writers talk about stuff like we’re doing. I’m a big believer that it’s better to be part of a community and not get some of the jobs some of the time, than it is to be in isolation and see everyone else as competition. But there is a certain amount of solitude and discipline in any writer, so it’s not like you’re out all the time, but I’ve always believed in having lots of connections to other writers. I think it’s a survival thing.
I have said to a lot of students, work out what sort of person you are. Often students will say to me ‘But don’t directors and actors change your vision?’ And I’m the sort of person who sees a really great argument or a really great interpretation and goes ‘Oh wow! Let’s do that’, and sometimes that’s my idea and sometimes it’s someone else’s. There are other writers who need to control things much more, in the best possible way. They’re very particular. Whereas I’m like, ‘Well, let’s try it and see who has the best argument about how you do that.’ So I love the collaborative process.
HS: I was curious, how often do you go to the theatre?
AV: Oh, sometimes I go to the theatre three or four times a week.
HS: Really? Wow.
AV: It seems to happen in gluts. Like I’ll be going three or four times for two weeks, and then I’ll have a week where I don’t go, and then I’ll go again twice… But I do try to see most other works that are on, because then you see actors, and you sit there as a writer going ‘Ooh, what can I do, what can I make for that fabulous genius?’ But I go and speak to a lot of schools because my plays are on the HSC syllabus, Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah on the English syllabus, and Parramatta Girls on the Drama syllabus. And I do say to aspiring playwrights, go and see as much stuff as you can. Even stuff that you don’t really like, you’ll always find something to understand and learn. And there are things that young writers can show us and tell us about the world that I can’t, unless they write plays about it. So I’m always saying to young writers, ‘Don’t think that it’s all been said and done. You have a perspective on your world that I want to see.’
HS: And in Nucleus, what are you most excited for the audience to see?
AV: Oh, the actors. I know I should say something else…
HS: Well, they are the play.
AV: It’s them! And I’m excited for people to see the design – it’s this hanging DNA molecule made out of bound columns.
HS: That sounds amazing.And I saw that there’s a fight director, Tim Dallimore; what does his work involve?
Tim has been amazing, because they’re working on a rake – the actual stage is on a tilt, so he’s been giving the actors exercises to strengthen their leg muscles for standing on the rake.
HS: Oh, cool!
AV: We watch that stuff and go ‘Oh yeah.’ But they work for months to make sure that their tendons are stretched in particular ways, and they can be on this rake. I mean, ‘fight choreographer’ is a catch-all, I can tell you there’s no sword fights.
HS: That sounds awesome. So you’ve talked about how they’ve been working on their tendons for months, and you’ve also mentioned that there are only four or five weeks to rehearse the play; how long was it altogether?
AV: You don’t work on it constantly, right? You do a bit of research… All up, most plays take about a year of solid work, spread over three or four years. And then the play gets read by the company – it was probably in 2023 – and then they programmed it in 2024 for 2025. So the fact that all of this – you know, the Coalition announced the nuclear policy and all that – that was all happening. I don’t think that had even been hinted at when the company was reading the play. And it has to go through a programming committee, all of that stuff. So it was just a happy nuclear accident. Oh, I’ve been dying to say that to someone!
HS: Now it’ll be published! Congratulations.
AV: Yeah, it’s been a happy accident that it’s all suddenly in the zeitgeist. But that’s the reward for being a bit weird, watching and seeing things that other people aren’t noticing. It means that you are prescient, and one of our obligations as artists is to be prescient, to be the canary in the coalmine for our tribe, for our society, talking about things that will happen in a few years’ time.
HS: That’s really cool. Now, is there anything else you’d like to add?
AV: Just to really lean into the fact that it is fiction. Even though I’ve written tons of things that aren’t verbatim, people think that things might be verbatim. And to say, come along for the laughs and the sexy and the funny and the sad! You’ll learn a few things as well about nuclear – I don’t want people to think it’s dry.
HS: No! Nuclear energy is such a fascinating topic, it’s something you’d never expect to see in theatre. I’m super excited.
AV: No pressure! Yeah, I do think it’s important for the theatre not to give away its ability to take on these contemporary ideas. People can be entertained in different ways, some people can be entertained hearing about how nuclear power works. We get into this narrow thing that everything has to be like dancing girls in fluffy dresses. And yeah, I love that too, but I think it has to be lots of other things.
HS: Thank you so much for this, it’s been lovely.
Nucleus is playing from 14th February to 15th March at the Seymour Centre.
