Before this trip the last time I was in Melbourne was in 1992. I guess that makes it 15 years since I’ve been here. 15 years has been a long time for this city. I was completely disoriented for much of the first while I was here. It was only when I started to realize that there were entire thickets of sky-scrapers that simply weren’t here before that I started to see the city I used to kind of know.

I had been to Melbourne, I think, three times including the 1992 stint. I first came with a SCOT (Suzuki Company Of Toga) production of The Bacchae. This was in 1989, I think. It was shortly after the departure from the company of lead actress Shiraishi Kayoko. Suzuki was still trying to figure out what to do without her (a problem he never really solved) and the production was, shall we say, troubled.

I came back in about ’91 to audition actors for the production that came to be called The Chronicle of Macbeth. This is a whole story of it’s own, but suffice it to say that in ’92 I returned to assist Suzuki in the creation of the Chronicle. This was a “troubled” production as well for reasons that are a bit complicated. However it did mean that I was in Melbourne for some two months (the fact that Akiko was also here for the second half of that time led to some consequences for our personal lives).

So 15 years ago, I lived and worked here for two months. Of course back then I was working with Suzuki. This meant that my scope of activity ranged from my apartment in South Yarra to Suzuki’s hotel downtown, to the theatre. We would go out to eat after rehearsal, but frankly I hardly remember much at all of that time here. I had thought that coming back would trigger a flood of specific memories about this town. But it hasn’t happened. I honestly don’t know if it is because Melbourne has changed or because I simply don’t have the memories to start with.

The workshop Barney and I are leading now is in the VAC (Victorian Arts Center). It’s an iconographic building right on the Yarra, in the center of town. This is where SCOT performed The Bacchae way back when. Recent development has made the area even more energetic than it was. Melbourne is one of those cities that has caught on to the fact that a river is a great context for public space (ARE YOU LISTENING MANHATTAN?) Actually I have to say that Melbourne has done some fantastic work with the whole idea of public space. Federation Square across the river from the VAC is a wonderful architectural indulgence.

However. There are some issues:
1. Flies. Yes the little flying bugs. They’re EVERYWHERE! Swarms of them follow you on the street. The don’t bite or anything but they are like excited puppies. They have a deep interest in what is going on between your sunglasses and your eyes and exploring ears and noses. The quick swipe of the hand across the face to clear them away is being called “the Aussie Salute”.
2. Drought. Australia is in the midst of a drought. It has been for quite some time. No one is really sure if it’s ever going to end. It could be that ye ‘ol global warming is turning this place into a desert. This makes the flies worse (people are saying there are always flies this time of year, but not this many). It also means that water conservation is a big deal. Talk of possible rain is engaged in with faintly desperate hope.
3. Free WiFi like a big weird concept here. The hotel charges WAY TO MUCH for internet access in the room and the afore mentioned Fed Square is the ONLY place where I’ve been able to find free WiFi (and I have an iPhone so I look everywhere). Don’t these ex-cons realize that access to free broadband WiFi is a basic human right?

One big change in my view of this place is that I’ve now read Guns Germs and Steel (by Jared Diamond). Looking at Australia now I have a much different picture than I used to. Had the indigenous peoples of this continent had a different history, or a different set of biological and geographic possibilities, the Colonial powers of Europe would have met with a much more advanced culture and Australia would be a place more akin to India or Hong Kong. But as in North America the Colonial powers replaced the indigenous people (for all practical purposes). And in the same way that the United States and Canada are European cultures in the Americas, Australia is a European culture in Asia. There is little to no co-habitation between the Colonial influence and the Aboriginal. Of course I’m making a sweeping generalization here and if you go out into the countryside there is more evidence of such co-habitation, but there simply are no cities like Melbourne or Sidney in India. Hong Kong has strong European influences but it’s clearly Chinese (to put it crudely). The value of the perspective I’ve gained from Diamond’s book is that the difference here is not due to genetic or racial advantage or disadvantage, but to geographic destiny. The indigenous peoples of Australia and North America lost their continents not because of who they were, but because of where they were. This is not to say that the people who took brutal advantage of this situation are to be painted with any sort of revisionist innocence brush, but white people are no more inherently evil than non-white people are inherently weak. I don’t think I’m making the argument as well as Diamond does. If you haven’t read the book, please do.
The situation now though is that as global warming starts sinking islands in the pacific there is a growing stream of refugees and a brief look at a map will tell you where a good deal of those people are going to end up. Even a desert continent is going to look pretty good when you’re drowning. I really wonder what’s going to happen to this place. We’ll be up in Alaska and the soon to be aptly named, Greenland. The Australians are going to have to take over Antarctica.

Did I mention that the flies are driving me crazy? In case I didn’t: The flies are driving me crazy!

Oh yeah. It’s raining!