2.3 The Clown Inside
With Emily Goddard
Emily Goddard in This is Eden
Captured by Justin Batchelor
In this episode Emily Goddard and Bronte Charlotte chat openly and honestly about the ups and downs of being actors, theatre makers, and generally empathetic humans. Emily talks about her life changing experience training overseas in Paris at Ecole Philippe Gaulier, discovering the joy in theatre, learning the multi-faceted Clown, creating her one woman show This Is Eden, and the impact such a strong, political, historical piece had, both on her own life and the lives of audience members. We delve into constantly being challenged and having to justify your creative path to those who don’t comprehend or understand how the arts can impact society, and an experience we had together in a poorly run workshop that is just one example of taking advantage of an actors willingness, vulnerability and openness.
During this episode we discuss:
[03:39] Melbourne lockdown emotional recap (how can we even begin to articulate our lockdown experience?!) and theatres opening back up and leading the way into Melbourne’s ‘COVID normal’
[08:47] Emily’s journey into performing, discovering the pleasure of theatre, taking herself to Paris to study at Ecole Philippe Gaulier, coming out of drama school overseas to enter the Australian theatre industry, clowning, failing, fear, and laughing at yourself.
[17:39] Training overseas, the isolation and freeing aspects of that, the absolute un-competitiveness of training with people from all over the world, and the difficulties of entering the industry after leaving Australia for a time.
[20:53] How Bouffon influenced the making of This Is Eden, discovering the early history of female convicts in Australia, discovering and developing the play that has been successful for 5 years now.
[28:16] The link between the transportation debate of the 1850s and our Asylum Seeker catastrophe, history repeating itself, Australian citizens’ lack of education around Australian history, and how audience responses have changed over the 5 years the show has been on.
[36:22] How we met, inappropriate expectations for actors, separating ourselves from the job, and how fear creates stressful environments not conducive to creativity.
[42:29] How can we feel valid in our choices as creatives when all around us people question if the arts are relevant, knowing that we are needed, making your own work
[50:00] Daily meditation, shaking out of lockdown energy, having space, downtime, and an ability to let go to create a sustainable practice
Emily Goddard in This is Eden
Captured by Justin Batchelor
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Bronte:
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Chats With Creatives podcast. This is a super exciting special episode with the gorgeous Emily Goddard. I cannot believe that she took some time out of her day and came to speak with me. It was just the most beautiful, generous, love filled, gorgeous time. And I am so excited to share this chat with you. And I'm still pinching myself because she is an absolute star. Emily Goddard is an actor and Theatre maker. She has been in shows at the Melbourne Theatre Company. She's worked with Dirty Pretty Theatre. She's been on at the Old Fitz. She's toured the UK on a national tour in a show called Mess by Caroline Horton, which we speak about a little bit in the podcast. She's the creator of the critically acclaimed Bouffon anti-bonnet drama, This is Eden, which was on at 45 Downstairs and Hothouse. She had two seasons of This is Eden at 45 Downstairs, and it also became a part of the 2020 VCE Theatre Studies playlist, which is crazy, especially in what 2020 has been. So, it became a filmed version of the play, which would have been amazing. Emily has also been nominated for three Green Room Awards for Outstanding Female Actor, which is just phenomenal. She is an inspiration and a clowning queen and just the most gorgeous person. And this chat is super open and honest. And it's really important to me that we all understand each other's experiences, particularly this year during lockdown in Melbourne, which was quite intense. And both Emily and I being artists in this particular lockdown, in this particular corner of the world, it was just really therapeutic and also heartwarming to talk to Emily about her experience during this time, because it has been really hard and it has made a huge impact. And I just hope that there are some little tidbits and little pieces of this conversation that mean as much to you as they did to me. If they do, absolutely let me know. I would love to hear from you all. This podcast kind of is still going because of you, because of you guys who keep contacting me and letting me know how much these conversations are impacting you and how much you're connecting with them. And that's so exciting. The more you let me know, the more you review these podcasts and the more you interact with our social media, the more we can continue this relationship. And that's exactly what I want to do. So that's really exciting. Let's jump into it. This is The Clown Inside with Emily Goddard. Hi Emily. Thank you so much for being here.
Emily:
I always take my watch off when I work. Do you do that?
Bronte:
Really? No!
Emily:
If I get to an audition or in rehearsals, I never wear my watch. I think I'm just in this habit of taking it off, so as soon as I sat down, I took it off. Isn't that weird?
Bronte:
Is it a thing that started as, you don't want to bump it or you don't want to tell the time?
Emily:
I think I thought that it was unprofessional in rehearsals. I think I was told some time to not wear a watch. It's like a marker for me that I've arrived at work.
Bronte:
That's nice, though.
Emily:
It's really weird. I've never told anyone that either.
Bronte:
How is your week been?
Emily:
How has my week been? Good! It's been a good week. It's been busy. I was doing some filming for a show that had to stop for covid and then it started again. So I rapped on that on Tuesday and I bought a Christmas tree on Wednesday. Which I haven't done, ever. Oh no! I have! Me and my cousin used to buy real ones when we lived together and then I've just had like a branch the last few years from the garden. But I was worried about my little kitten with the branch. So I thought it might be safer to get like a little small tree, like a fake one. But I couldn't find one anywhere. They were really, really expensive. Yeah, like stupidly. And I ended up... This is what happens. You know, when you finish a job and you have a bit of a comedown, sometimes it's really intense. Like if I've been doing a show, it's really full on in the next maybe week I'm just like, "what's happening?" And I feel sad or unsettled or... But I guess it was a bit different with this, with the show, because it was sort of in bits and it was broken up and I didn't have a huge part to play on it. But still the next day I was like a bit kind of, "what am I doing?" And then I found myself in Chadstone looking for a plastic tree and I couldn't find one anywhere. And then I was standing in David Jones and there was this $150 plastic tree. And I was like, that's absurd. And I reckon I stared at it for 15 minutes going, "but, you know, if I don't get it, like, where will I find one? Is it... Wha -" And I'm like, "why are you even thinking about spending that stupid amount of money in a dumb tree?" So I found one in the end and it was much cheaper than that. So anyway, that's a weird story to tell you, but that's how my week's been. A bit kind of busy and then strange. Like it's a weird time right now. It's sort of suddenly Christmas, but we haven't even been allowed to leave the house. And interactions are weird also.
Bronte:
And exhausting, I find.
Emily:
I've had a few moments where a group of people come together and people are like, "so how was lockdown for you?" And I'm like, I feel like that's such a massive question. And it's sort of, it's asked so casually, like "so how were your holidays?" I think, how do I begin to... How do we really begin to articulate it?
Bronte:
I feel the same. I felt... Whenever someone asks that question, and quite often it's someone who hasn't experienced locked down in the way that Melbourne has, like I can't, I can't explain the experience. I can't explain it. And... It wasn't good. It wasn't dreadful. It was just this really odd time that was so up and down. Like it doesn't... Yeah it's so hard to explain. Because if you explain one day of your lockdown, even if your days looked similar, like if you weren't working and you're kind of repeating your day to day movements, the emotional difference between each hour in that day or each day was just like massive.
Emily:
Totally. And there was a sense of kind of endurance, wasn't there, especially going back into the second one and having, "Ok, six weeks." And then halfway through that, it was another six weeks. And then, I can't even remember how long it went. I mean, it seemed like forever. But now for it to be out... And I remember in it thinking, "OK, well, when I can hug someone again..." Or "when I can go outside, I'm going to appreciate everything." And I am appreciating things. But it's also there's a kind of normality that comes back very quickly that's strange as well. Like, did that happen? Was there really a time not long ago when I could leave the house once really in a day, and not go further than five kilometres, and be home by 7:00 PM, not see anyone, touch anyone... And then to be now in this space where it's really, I mean, it's so amazing, we've all worked so hard for it, but for the rest of the world to still be in this turmoil, that's also... There's a real disconnect there. I still feel like I'm holding my breath all the time. It's not really over, is it?
Bronte:
It's also interesting how things are kind of coming back. But I don't know, like it feels weird to me to think about having booked my first theatre tickets for next year and just thinking like, "it won't be like, I won't be squished into Theatre Works with people on either side of me and our legs touching and..."
Emily:
No! You'll be in a box. It's all going to be so regulated for so long isn't it. Yeah, even like distanced seats and limited capacity, I feel like, "wow, what will it be like performing for twenty people." I mean it will probably be lovely in a small space. Being at LaMama with thirty people is a nice place to perform.
Bronte:
I'm really excited about like, a few theatres have released their program for the year and man, those first few shows like, I'm so excited to see them, but also like so impressed and awed by the performers and the people involved in those shows because they're like, they're leading the way.
Emily:
Yeah! They are and they've been working on on their shows all through this time. It's amazing. I can't wait. And I think, it's giving me a lot of hope.
Bronte:
How did you get to be where you are now? Where did it all begin?
Emily:
Someone asked me that the other day. They were like, "OK, just..." It was an interview. They said, "can you just, like, give us very kind of brief story of your life?" Well, I was born in Melbourne. I grew up in Mount Waverley. I'm the youngest of three. I've got two older brothers. And I feel like maybe that is part of why I became an actor. My parents weren't particularly creative. My mom is an amazing sewer, but she was a teacher of the deaf and my dad is a really great artist. But he never, he worked in H.R. and never really had a chance to pursue his art when he was younger. I loved dancing. I really, I was obsessed with dancing and I wanted to be a professional ballerina. Yeah, I think when I was a child, I loved performing because everyone was really quiet, like everyone sort of listened. And I think that's one of the things that I fell in love with that really kind of got me into it. Dancing first and then acting. My house was always so noisy and people were always talking over each other. And when I got up, we had like a little step in in my kitchen, that kind of became the stage, and whenever I did a performance everyone had to be quiet. I loved dancing, and then I, when I was in grade six, I auditioned for the VCA. One of many times I auditioned for the VCA and was rejected. This was my first rejection from the VCA. And so I just went to a normal high school. And that's when I started getting into drama because I had a really amazing drama teacher. Really, really, really amazing. And I started to realise that whenever I went to the ballet with my mum, I would always watch the acting and not really the dancing or even when I was performing myself in my concerts, I'd always be given the character parts and... I was like, "Oh no, that's really what I love." So I always knew that that's what I wanted to do. And then when I finished high school, I auditioned again for the VCA and I got put on the waiting list.
Bronte:
Torture.
Emily:
And they'd said, you know, you probably won't get in because you just finished school. But then they were like, well, yeah, if someone doesn't take their place, then it's yours. So I kind of sat there by the phone for the whole summer because it's really all I wanted to do. And I was so excited that I'd gotten through so far, because I really hadn't expected that. And so I didn't get it. No one said no. So I ended up at Monash doing a double degree in law and performing arts. So I did like a year. And it was really... The performing arts was very academic and I just really wanted to be an actor. And I was really frustrated. I felt like... I really didn't have a good time. And so I went back to the open day at VCA and John Bolton was the head of acting at the time. And I went up to him and I said, "look, if I don't get in next year, I've got to go overseas. Otherwise, I'm just going to... Like I have to study. I have to train." And he wrote Philippe Gauliers name on a piece of paper. And I went home and I looked it up. This is in 2004. And I was like, "that's it. That's the school I'm going to." That's what kind of led me there to begin with. I just loved the idea of somebody teaching me about pleasure with theatre. And Gaulier believes that theatre is as serious as a child's game. And I remember seeing that on the website and being like, "I want to learn about that." So I had a bit of inheritance from my grandma and I deferred uni and took myself to Paris when I was twenty and it changed everything I thought acting should be. It just flipped it all around. I was very much like, I really loved drama and I really wanted to be a serious actress. And really kind of, what I guess I'd experienced of acting to that point was very much about like accessing truth and feeling real truth. And Gauliers whole philosophy is about pretending and the pleasure to pretend gives the illusion of truth. And then the audience buys that illusion. So they believe it to be real. But if we spend too much time like obsessing about something being real or kind of bringing up our own pain, then the audience is watching us in pain and they can'tf dream around us. So there's not this kind of imaginative space that the audience enters. So that was a kind of flip for me. Yeah. So I did six months and then I had to come back, I ran out of money. And I ended up going back twice. At Gaulier you can study in kind of sections. You don't have to do the whole two years at once. I ended up going three times to complete the whole two years at three different times, and I got scholarships and funding and great support to go back and finish it. So it wasn't until 2010 that I completed it and I'd also finished my performing arts in between at Monash so that I had a degree, because apparently it was important to have a degree which I was really detesting at the time as well. Looking back, it was really good. It's such an intense place to study, but it was nice to be able to kind of come back here and do some shows and put what I learnt into practise and then kind of work out what I still wanted to learn and then go back. Yeah. And then since 2010, I guess I had that kind of period of coming out of drama school. It was sort of different because it had been a drama school overseas and a lot of people thought it was a clown school, not a theatre school. So there was a sort of, bit of a bumpy ride kind of coming into the industry, at first here. Even though I'd worked a bit before graduating in Paris. And then sort of from, I guess, 2012 onwards, that's when I started getting mainstage work. And, yeah, that was, that's how it started, I guess
Bronte:
Wow. So you you weren't necessarily always interested in clowning?
Emily:
No.
Bronte:
So it wasn't the clowning aspect of Gaulier that took you in it?
Emily:
No, actually I thought I'd be crap at Clown. I just was like, "oh, this'll be fun to learn about."
Bronte:
I think you've said before that it's like, it's so much more than just clowning. You study different, different types of theatre and and all sorts there.
Emily:
Yeah. Yeah. So you study... I mean the main thing that he teaches is Le Jeu, which is The Game, this idea of pleasure and the pleasure to pretend. And then he kind of takes you through a whole range of styles. Probably similar to some of the stuff that you did at VCA, like neutral mask, Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, Chekhov, melodrama, and then Clown and Bouffon. Yeah, but I was really kind of, I guess I was sort of flippant about those because I thought, well, they're... Like a lot of people came to the school for that. And I just had no idea. I really had no idea how hard Clown was, what it really was and how much it could give me as an actor. Because I think we're also trained to want to be really good. Actors want to be good at what they do and they don't want to make mistakes. And clown, you have to fuck it up. Like that's the flop. You have to. And you have to be so vulnerable because the things that you're kind of most scared of exposing are the things that are the funniest about you, too. So I just found myself crying a lot and that being funny and how glorious the things that you kind of take more seriously about yourself are actually the things that end up being the most funny.
Bronte:
It is kind of hilarious how seriously we take ourselves.
Emily:
And how freeing that is to go "Oh, I don't actually have to be scared of that! Like those parts of myself, that humanity and that fear is actually, it's so necessary to share as an actor. And it makes us way more interesting." And it was such a gift, such a gift. But clown is really the hardest thing I've ever studied. Have you studied... Did you do it at VCA?
Bronte:
Small amounts.
Emily:
And was it terrifying when you did it?
Bronte:
Yes. Yeah.
Emily:
It's so dark because so much of the time you're just not funny.
Bronte:
Yeah, the fear of it was that I could see that I wasn't funny, that I could see everyone else being funny and getting a response. And then I'd just, any amount of response kind of wasn't enough for me to believe that I was funny or like doing it. Yeah. It never felt like a skill of mine.
Emily:
It's funny, isn't it? Because you have to kind of be, you have to be bad at it to be good at it. If that makes sense. Like it's not like Stand-Up where the joke is funny. Clown is that you tell the joke, no one laughs and then you feel the failure and then it's funny. It's really the most wonderful thing. But I feel like there's still this sense here, I feel sometimes... maybe everywhere has this, that Gaulier is a real clown school. And so you come out of there and people just think that you're going to be like clowning or improvising. Actually like so many great actors have bits of clown in them. They don't have to.... yeah, I want to be taken seriously, Bronte.
Bronte:
How was it to train overseas? I'm curious if it was isolating or if it was freeing.
Emily:
I think it was maybe a bit of both. I think it was really freeing because it felt like being in another kind of universe and there was a real magical kind of bubble. I think every drama school would have that kind of bubble where you get really close with people. And I think because I was so far away from anyone I knew and anyone who'd known me, there was a sort of sense of being able to just experience everything without having to go home and have a chat with my parents or... And there was no other pressure of life or, it was just there. And training with people from all over the world was also really wonderful because there was no competition. There wasn't any sense of like, "oh, when we finish, that person's going to do well." You couldn't really compare yourself to other people because no one was going back to the same country to work really. There might have been three or four Australians, but we were all interested in different things and we were all different ages. And so that was really, really nice. Because I find the competitive nature of our industry so... I really, I just find it so ugly. And sometimes I really embrace it. And other times I really shy away from it. Or sometimes it makes me smaller. Sometimes it makes me want to fight harder for what I want. But yeah, I felt like that was a really liberating part of the experience. But I feel like coming home, like I said before, it was sort of a bit harder to be... To kind of get representation or sort of get seen at first because there was this sort of... You didn't have the stamp of a drama school. And I think in some ways it would have been easier to enter the industry. But maybe that's just my idea.
Bronte:
It's so interesting you say that because in my eyes, Gaulier is like... It 100% has a stamp of of a drama school. But maybe that's because, like, it's a place that I had once aspired to go to as well. And it's like kind of on a pedestal for me. But it's also like, it's a really well renowned acting institution.
Emily:
I think it's a stamp... It is a stamp. But maybe at the time when I came back, it didn't feel like a stamp like NIDA was a stamp. Or VCR or WAAPA.
Bronte:
It was like a distant stamp.
Emily:
Yeah. Exactly. A distant stamp. And I really wanted at the time to set up an agent's day for people who had distant stamps, and I never did that. But I thought it would be such a nice thing for people who study overseas to be able to come back and go, "OK, we want to showcase ourselves too. And we've studied, too." But, you know, it's given me so many wonderful friendships with people around the world and opportunities to work overseas as well that I wouldn't have had if I'd studied here. So I think both have their benefits, don't they? And really, it's just... It's such a privilege to be able to have gone there and to study at all. And to do what we do. We can obsess about, "oh, maybe this way would have been better or that way would have been better." But that's just all stories in the end, like I was so fortunate to be able to follow this path, even though it's hard at times. But it's a real gift.
Bronte:
So I did a workshop with you during lockdown on Bouffon. And in there you shared a little bit about how that particular style of clown was kind of, a way into discovering This is Eden. I think, or like, building This is Eden up into what it became.
Emily:
I saw you laugh then and I thought, "are you remembering the workshop?"
Bronte:
No! I loved the workshop. I loved it. It was really nice to get an insight into the background of This is Eden, because I saw it in the first round of performances. I think I must have been in first year... Was it, did it happen in 2016. Was that the first run? Or 2017.
Emily:
We did it at Hothouse in 2015 and then it was 2017 at 45 - The first one in Melbourne.
Bronte:
Ok so I saw it in 2017 and then you brought it back again. If I'm correct.
Emily:
Yes it just keeps coming back!
Bronte:
And that one I brought my partner to and was like, "you must watch this, welcome to Melbourne Theatre."
Emily:
And then he left. Terrified. "Never do that to me again."
Bronte:
He suddenly understood my obsession with you. So how did Bouffon influence the making of This is Eden?
Emily:
That was my favourite part, by the way.
Bronte:
Was it just in the... Like had you written it all before you started to put it up on the on the floor?
Emily:
No. So This is Edan came about because my mum had discovered convict ancestors and she'd discovered a female convict ancestor who had gone to Cascades Female Factory where the show is set. And in 2012, she wanted to take me on this trip around Tasmania to all the places of significance in the life of my female convict ancestor, Sarah Ford. Where she arrived and then where she was imprisoned, at Cascades, and where she was assigned to work and all the places before she came to Melbourne in the 1850s. And I wasn't really interested in the history. I didn't... My experience of convicts history was really, really limited. I didn't know anything about the women and I didn't... I just remember everything that I learnt at school being really very dull and very romanticised. And kind of gimmicky like, the ghost tour of Port Arthur when I was at high school, and sea shanties and, you know, like singing Botany Bay at my primary school concert. Like, really nothing actually about the real experiences. So I didn't really... I just wasn't that interested in going.But I'd broken up with my boyfriend at the time and I was like, "oh, I'll go to Tasmania with my mum. That will be a nice thing to do." And then we went on a tour of the ruins of Cascades. And I couldn't believe that I didn't know about what these women had experienced. About 6000 of the overall 25000 women were sent there. I didn't even know 25000 women came over here. And most of them were young, maybe like one or two percent were violent criminals. They were sent over for either their first or second offence, which was usually like stealing stuff, as we know, very minor. And one of the things they told me on this tour was that the women used to make up performances that mocked the authorities. And I was like, "what!? That's bouffon!" And I'd been studying Bouffon in Paris. And I was just like so amazed that they did this as a way to rebel, but also to entertain themselves and keep themselves sane. And so I, this was in 2012. I was really inspired at that time to make a show that could really shed light on the experiences of these women and somehow do it through Bouffon. Like kind of bring to life the women's performances. And I also thought about how, if we knew more about this part of our history, would we have more empathy for people who are coming here now? And would we realise that we're kind of perpetuating the same kind of cruelty? So that's kind of what I was interested in to begin with. But it wasn't until a couple of years later that I really started working on it. The following year in 2013, I went on a tour of the UK with a friend, Caroline Horton. She'd written a show. I started with her in Paris and she had made an amazing show. It was a clown show about anorexia called Mess, and we toured it around the UK. And I was so inspired by the way she'd made this... This was her second show. She talked to me about how when she made her first show and her second show, she really just took it bit by bit. Like she didn't try and do the whole thing at once. She just did little development, little development, and things kind of started to fall into place. So I was so inspired by that, because I'd had this idea about Eden and it was just sort of sitting there and I hadn't had the time, but probably also the courage to really do something about it. But when I was in the UK, I thought, OK, all I need to do when I get back to Australia is do one little development and see if there's an idea. And I'd worked with Susie Dee on a show, on a Declan Greene play called Moth in 2012, and I'd really loved her energy, I loved how kind of messy she got with things. So I thought, "why not? I'm just going to send her an email and see if she's interested." And I thought, "I need to pay her." I need to pay her, obviously, because she's a professional and we should get paid. But I also thought, "I need to pay her because if my ideas are so bad, I want her to like, stick around for a week at least and not like leave." You know, like I thought, "I need to do this properly, pay someone for their time." And I also got a residency. That's what I did. I applied for this little residency at Gasworks. They had like two weeks free space. And I got that. And then I asked Susie, I said, "do you want to just play with me, one week or two weeks part time? And we've got to do a little showing at the end." And I said to her, "if it's really bad, we never have to talk about it again. And if it's good, then we can kind of do something. Maybe." That was really good because I took all the pressure off it. And she said, "yes, I want to work on it." And then we had this crazy showing at the end of the week that we had to do as a kind of requirement of the residency and people had to pay for the showing as well. It was so stressful. So we had this pressure of kind of... I was like, OK, Bouffon and the convicts and... That first development was really trying to work through all of the awkwardness we had around the history and all the things that we didn't want to do because we didn't want to make some cliche. We didn't want to just kind of keep telling the same bonnet drama story. We really wanted to break all that apart. But most of the stuff that we came up with in that first time was really kind of cliché, weird stuff, because we were just trying to get those ideas out of our heads. But we had some really, we found some interesting kind of mockery things in that first development and then kind of imagining what kind of characters the women would have mocked. And we also kind of discovered this sort of strange blending between present and past, which at the time was just me. It wasn't the character of Jane. But that in the end, after the showing, that seemed to be the most compelling thing for the audience. That kind of feeling of is it the present? Is it the past? There's some kind of strange connection. At that time actually, I didn't even... I hadn't done a huge amount of research, so I didn't know so much about the parallels between our immigration debate now - our asylum seeker catastrophe, catastrophe in the way that we've dealt with it - and the transportation debate of the 1850s that stopped the convicts from coming. I didn't know much about that then. So there weren't really, those parts of it weren't in there yet. But what I was really interested in doing was, I think once we'd found the characters and the mockery within... The mockeries that Mary did in the cell, I really wanted to make sure that it wasn't just a kind of historical piece. Because Bouffon is also, Bouffon is about mocking the audience, the current audience, the audience that's in front of us and laughing at them and exposing the hypocrisy within them and the injustice of the current society. So I didn't just want it to be like, "oh, yeah, back in, you know, 1839, this character sat in this cell and she, like, rebelled by doing these mockeries." Like what, what are we going to get from that?
Bronte:
It's one of the things that has stuck with me so much since seeing it, apart from your performance and the story as a whole, is like how... How you force the audience to question what we knew. Like you brought out a map of Australia and you ask the audience, "what indigenous land is this?" And no one knows. One of the performances I went to, there was a person down the front who literally knew all the different tribes that lived all along the East Coast of Australia, which was beautifully impressive. But you bring audience members up onto the stage and you kind of engage with them and reveal in a mocking, like a gentle way, but also in quite a confronting way, I think, as Australian citizens, that we don't know our history and we don't know... We're not educated enough to know, like, as you just said, like I didn't know that there were 25000 female convicts that came to Australia, and I certainly didn't know that they were put into this factory and into this prison and dealt with in the way that they were dealt with, until I saw your show.
Emily:
There's so much we just don't know. There's a huge amount I didn't know and that map moment, I was so scared of that moment, but for me, I think it is the most, kind of the most interesting and maybe powerful point in the show, because it is, in terms of Bouffon, kind of flipping the mirror. And it's kind of, we could laugh at Jane, we could laugh at her ignorance. We could laugh at... And then for the audience to go, "oh, OK. No, that's me. I don't actually... I'm the same." And that moment came from, I was standing in the rehearsal room and I had the map and I said to my director and my dramaturg, I was doing some improv stuff as Jane, and then I broke out of character and I said, "I actually, I need to still look up the names." And my dramaturg said, "you've got to keep that in the show. That's going in the show." And I thought, "how? What?!"
Bronte:
It's that moment that you were talking about before, like that kind of thing that you're most....
Emily:
Yeah, like, what we're most ashamed of and what we're most vulnerable...
Bronte:
That being the thing that you have to share.
Emily:
Yeah. And we think that we're going to be judged for that. And we are, like we should judge ourselves for that. Like it's not okay that we don't know and we need to learn more and we need to be more educated. But for me to also go, this is a moment. If I'm experiencing this, then a lot of people in the audience are going to experience this. And we need to... I think that's the job of the artist, isn't it? To share our own experience and also to reflect things back and go, "hey, this is not OK." And well done for coming to a show about the female convicts. Like well done for learning about that. But what's the point if we're not going to be better people now? Like let's look at ourselves and not just judge the past and go, "Oh yeah. Wasn't it awful?" No, it's still awful. It's still awful for so many people. Yeah. So that became a very important part of the work for me, that it definitely wasn't just a piece of history, that it really looked at how we need to change. And I think we are. The show was on the VCE playlist this year for students to study the film version of it, the filmed version, not the film version. And someone said, one of the students said, "do you think Jane will have changed next time you perform this? Do you think Jane will have been changed by the pandemic?" And I thought that's a really interesting question, because she is meant to be present. Like in the current time. And I thought probably not, but I think the audiences will be. And I hope that that map moment doesn't stay that map moment forever. I hope people can tell Jane, and I think they will. I think the attitude towards Jane will change because we never wanted her to be like a totally lovable character. We wanted her to kind of get everyone on board as Bouffon has to do. Really kind of charm the audience and get them comfortable and then kind of pull the rug out. So we really wanted to make her very lovable and relatable. And then we kind of wanted to deconstruct her at the end and show some of her ugliness. But we often found that people just sort of went crazy for Jane. And some of the responses from the students were that they didn't like her and they, that they really judged her and they didn't think it was right what she was saying and what she was doing. I was like, "good, OK, this is..." It's interesting making a show, what it's five years ago now, and kind of watching how the responses kind of start to subtly shift. That's fascinating.
Bronte:
I definitely think with presenting it to students like, the younger generation is so on top of this. Like, the primary school near my house, they have an Indigenous flag on their fence and inside the school they have posters about people in the school from different lands and it's so inclusive and beautiful. And a friend of mine's kid, he's two years old and he goes to just a kindergarten in Richmond, but they thank the land for being the land, and they thank the sky for being the sky, every day. And just little things that kind of are bringing, I think, a new understanding of our history to...
Emily:
And they will grow up with it. Like it's a normal thing. As it should be.
Bronte:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah I think Jane is such a fascinating character because she really does - she flips a mirror on society. But if society is kind of moving forward, that mirror...
Emily:
Jane will be left behind.
Bronte:
Maybe.
Emily:
Yeah. Or Jane will just please older crowds. The younger people will throw tomatoes at her! Which will be really interesting as well. Like that's another fascinating part of doing this show, just kind of the different responses from different generations. The older generations kind of, well some of them, wanting to come in and kind of talk about their convict ancestors. And then the younger being interested in, much more, in the politics of the piece.
Bronte:
It's so fascinating. I think about it all the time. But also just the fact that it comes from, it comes from you discovering that an ancestor of yours was a convict and needing to share that story. And as you said, not in a way like this is a history piece. Like presenting the similarities of that situation to what's happening today. Right now. In the same country..
Emily:
Yeah. What is that saying about if we don't learn from our history, we're doomed to repeat it.
Bronte:
But also, how important it is to learn our history, which I think is something that's been lacking in the Australian school system for way too long. We're not taught from a young age the true history.
Emily:
I think we've been so awkward about it. I think there's so much confusion, shame, guilt. People don't want to look at it. I feel like that's part of it about the past. So glad things are finally changing.
Bronte:
Is there something that you struggle with in the industry, whether it be creatively or personally?
Emily:
I think the biggest thing I struggle with... And it's interesting you ask that because I thought, "oh, you haven't asked me how we met yet." I thought maybe you don't want to talk about it.
Bronte:
We can talk about it now. How did we meet Emily?
Emily:
Kind of like, ties into this. We met helping a student with their film. And I remember the experience was really strange and kind of awkward because it wasn't led particularly well. And one of the questions I think I was asked as soon as we sat down, I think I'd just got the script as well, was "Emily, have you experienced trauma?" And instead of saying, "why is that relevant?" Or "I don't know if that's an appropriate question for you to ask actors kind of that you've just met." I just sat there quietly and then in my mind, kind of went into my past and kind of tried to dig up things that I thought, "Is that trauma? Is that trauma?" It was a really weird experience, wasn't it? I don't know whether I even answered her in the end. I can't remember.
Bronte:
I think there was, from memory the response was something like, "I don't know, like what is trauma? Like in what... What are you talking about?" Kind of. Yeah. And I think we kind of dodged it a little bit, but it was such an odd way to start, whatever it was, a morning working with this script.
Emily:
Yeah. It was really, it was just one of those experiences where you go, yep. Well I mean, I know this was also like a student kind of workshop, but I feel like one of the things that I struggle with most is just managing that kind of thing. And being able to separate, I guess, my own... I love my work so much, as you do. Like, we do this because we love it. It's an incredibly rewarding thing to do. And it's also difficult, challenging, like we work hard. But really, there's nothing else like it when you're kind of in the flow of a performance and it's like... It's the best thing in the world to me. But there is so much... I've been in rooms so often that are just led in a way that is not really safe or not really conducive to, kind of, free creativity. And I struggle with being able to kind of separate my own creative experience from that kind of dysfunction in a room. And I can sometimes, if the project is, if there's a lot of pressure on the project and I really want it to be good, which most of the time, I put too much pressure on it, I can really let that stuff in. And I can spend a lot of energy kind of going, "why? Why did they do that? Why is this happening? What is...?" Instead of just kind of going, "you know what, maybe they don't know, and they're not saying they don't know." Like a lot of people, when we're making theatre, I think we're scared because we don't know. We feel a lot of uncertainty. We're kind of working towards this goal. We have a script, we have a vision, but we're all kind of walking in the dark a little bit. And I think the best rooms are when we can go. We don't know. But let's discover it together. Let's kind of be open and help each other and have honest conversations and everyone can kind of contribute. And I think it's when people get scared of that and they want to appear like they know everything, that sometimes the rooms can become very, I don't really want to give examples, but they're just like stressful. That can be really stressful. And sometimes I can just get into that stress instead of going, "That stress is not my role. My role here is to serve this character. And my role is also to protect my own serenity and my own peace of mind so that I can give what I need to to this character, which is one piece of a big pie." And sometimes I can kind of give my energy away to the whole kind of chaos of the experience. And then I have to work really hard to kind of bring myself back. I think that is the biggest challenge that I have.
Bronte:
I think, it feels very relatable for me, I think it's something that a lot of performers can quite easily do, especially being quite empathetic people. And wanting to do the best that they can. It kind of leaves a bit of an open door to that...
Emily:
Then we can be sponges for everything. And so that I'm going home and I'm packing something that someone said that wasn't really, you know... Or I kind of internalise the whole confusion of the process, rather than just kind of going like, "Just trust it." Or wanting to take care of many things instead of my own stuff.
Bronte:
But then there's also when we step into a space - like the one that we did step into - there's almost a little bit of a taking advantage of that openness and vulnerability of asking, "have you ever experienced trauma?" And it's like, how is that an appropriate question? And I'm here as an actor, open and vulnerable. That's a really kind of dangerous space to enter into without boundaries or safety nets or anything.
Emily:
Yeah, so you end up managing that, instead of the work. Sometimes I take that really personally, I'm like, "how dare you make me work on all that crap when you're employing me as an actor." And yet there's so much other stuff to kind of sift through. And it's big what we do like, rehearsals go for four weeks usually, then a production week and then you're on. And it takes a week or two to kind of work out the dynamics of the room. You know, you work with a group of people and then that's it. And then you're up in front of the audience and it's like a pressure cooker. And some rooms are magic. And of course, nothing's ever going to be perfect. And like, we need a bit of... It's not going to be all like everyone kind of sitting around speaking nicely to each other. Like the work we do is stressful. And I understand that. But sometimes, yeah. I think that's the thing. Like, I come home and I'm obsessed with one thing rather than being obsessed about my character. Not always, but yeah, I think that would be the biggest challenge for me, letting it go. Letting it go.
Bronte:
Those moments of that kind of challenge, how is it that you continue to work in the industry? Like what is it that keeps you here?
Emily:
Something inside me that tells me that it's really important. But there's definitely been times where I've gone, "it's too much, I can't do it. Like, it's not worth it." Like coming out, I came out of a show a year or two ago and I was like, "I don't think I can go on stage again." The joy of it was gone. It was gone. And I was so upset because I thought, "The whole point of this, and all my training was about pleasure and fun and finding that freedom. And I thought, "if I can't have that, what's the...?" The flame had gone very small. And then thankfully, I got to do This Is Eden again, and I kind of woke up again, I was like, "oh no!" But that was an interesting one because I had so much more creative control over that. Yeah, I think there is that... I have to sometimes go back to, like, "OK, well, why did you want to do this when you were younger? What is it that made you fall in love with it, and what is it that made you feel like this was an important thing?" And when younger actors talk to me and they go, "oh, do you have any advice?" I'm always like, "yeah, you just remember that what you do is really, really valuable and it's important. And we live in a society that doesn't value that or doesn't see that, but don't internalise that yourself. We need you." And I think I have to kind of go, "no, this is important." Because when I'm doing it and when it works, I feel like, "yeah, this is the most important thing I could do with my life." And if it wasn't, why on earth would you have done it? Because there's so much sacrifice.
Bronte:
I think it's a really hard thing to stay strong in this industry for an extended amount of time. Especially with, as you said, like all of those other factors and elements around you, kind of not validating your choice in a way and your passion and your commitment to it. You know, even the most, like the clearest thing at the moment for me is our government just saying it's not worthy. And that as an artist and choosing to live this life, that it's not valid to our government,to people in these big rooms at big tables making decisions for us, saying "that's not what we want, not what we need. Nobody needs that."
Emily:
And there's a total lack of understanding of what it is and also what it takes.
Bronte:
And also what it does for community's. What it does for people.
Emily:
Yeah. And also that we're the ones that have to like stand up and justify it. I hate that. I hate being like, "OK, so why did the arts matter?" How have you been to the theatre. Have you had an experience that's changed you. Why do you...? Does a lawyer have to get up and be like, "this is why I do my job. Like this is why I should keep doing my job."
Bronte:
Nobody else has to do that.
Emily:
It's hard enough just to do our job. Why do we have to convince you of why we should? Why it's important to you? We also do it for you. There's this sense that, like, it's a lovely hobby and, you know, we love it and...We do love it, but I also hate it sometimes. It's hard. It's so hard. And I had this amazing German movement teacher in Paris who was like, "no one knocked on your door and asked you to be an actor." She was like, "stop complaining about how..." And there's an element of that, but also like, it is... It's a tough gig. We have to be so open. We have to be so vulnerable. We have to be so generous. We have to be so accommodating. We basically like have to be whatever you want me to be. We have to go out every night. It's not even like film and TV. Theatre acting is - I mean, and that's a different thing, isn't it - But you like on the line every night. And you're also always kind of in pursuit of this flow and this presence that's kind of like, transcends everything. It's sort of a magic. But to get there is a lot of hard work and it requires a sort of obsession of the mind I feel, as well, that sort of shuts you out of normal life. It's a totally bizarre thing to articulate, but I just feel like people think that we are... I remember going to this Hens party of a school friend and speaking to this mother of one of the girls who was like, "so you're an actor. I go to the MTC, what have you been in?" And so I started, like, telling her about some of the MTC shows I'd done. And she was like, "oh, yes, we saw that." I think she said something like, "I don't remember you." And I was like, "oh, I was I was the only woman in it." And then this happened like, I sort of went through a few different things. And then she went, "Oh, yes. So bits and bobs." I was like, "that's it, isn't it? That's what you think, bits and bobs, like some little bits of something that's in the crap drawer, you just chuck some elastic bands and a stapler and it's bits and bobs...
Bronte:
To be working mainstage in Melbourne or in Australia is like, it's not bits and bobs. That's like top tier. Oh my goodness.
Emily:
I'm like, it's not like I was Cate Blanchett and she was like, "oh yeah. Bits and bobs." But I feel like...
Bronte:
It's another example of having to justify.
Emily:
And you go, my work isn't bits and bobs. It takes a huge amount of commitment and skill and and... Yeah, I think that's what I'm trying to say. The world thinks we do bits and bobs. Well, not all the world, but a lot of the world, the society, the government. People don't understand it.
Bronte:
People who go to the theatre.
Emily:
They go to theatre. Yeah. They subscribe. Bits and bobs. Strange, strange old thing, isn't it.
Bronte:
Is there a dream role or a dream cast that you'd like to work with or something you'd like to do?
Emily:
I really want to turn This Is Eden into a television drama. So I'm learning screenwriting. And I want to employ all my favourite actors.
Bronte:
But that's the dream, isn't it? Like, that's what you... Once you're in the position to do so, that's what you can do. You can work with your favourite actors.
Emily:
Yeah. I just think there's so many amazing women, like yourself, who... Like, imagine doing a show about the factory, about all those women. It would be so great. And I want to do like a... I want to do Jane's world too. So like the actors will play the past and also the present. That's my idea! Just put it into the world.
Bronte:
Also, how great would it be to finally have something on the women of Australian history, like new Australian history. Yeah there's a lot of men trumping around the outback and walking through mountains...
Emily:
Sexy bearded bushrangers.
Bronte:
Learning the country. Oh, that sounds so exciting.
Emily:
I hope I can do it!
Bronte:
Of course you can!
Bronte:
Quickfire questions, which never end up being quickfire... Do you have something in your day that you just have to do?
Emily:
I have had that at different stages. Meditation's been one of them, but at the moment I'm out of practice. I think knock... Knock-down! Lockdown. Knocked me down a bit! Which is probably the time to meditate more. But I didn't. But Dione Zanotto has amazing meditations for performance. They're so good. You can get them on the Art Centre Wellness Collective, also Spotify Meditations for Performance Energy. I think her company is called Performance Based Meditation. I did a meditation course with her last year and that has been amazing. But I haven't been doing it. But I did do it yesterday, so hopefully I'm back on the train. But yeah, that, meditation, and morning pages have been also something in the past that have really been amazing for me. But again, not at the moment.
Bronte:
It's such a weird time to be having a practice, or keeping habits.
Emily:
Yeah, have you found that too.
Bronte:
Oh, absolutely. I stopped meditating throughout lookdown as well, even though I could feel the entire time just being like, "I feel like meditation would be really good for me right now."
Emily:
It's funny though the times when you really feel like it's needed...
Bronte:
I really couldn't engage in anything slow paced. Or like still. I needed fiery energy. I even stopped running because I was like, it's just too consistent. It's like a long, slow paced thing. I like, I couldn't... Because I was in that energy the entire time, because I wasn't working, I wasn't seeing people, I was just at home... I needed things to really, like lift! Rather than like continue this stillness.
Emily:
That is so true. Because I felt like that, like a real flatness because there wasn't seeing people and working in real life...
Bronte:
or like spontaneity. There was no spontaneity. So yeah, I was kind of doing a lot of like high intensity workouts because I was like, "I just have to like jump around." When I had the energy to do it. Yeah. And at the moment in this, in this like period of change where things are coming back and things are opening up again, I feel like I have no habits. My only habit is I practice yoga every day with my beloved yoga teacher, Amy Carmody. She has a wonderful online platform. And so I do classes with her every day. She offers like hour long classes and 20 minute classes. So I can't miss it.
Emily:
Yeah twenty minutes is manageable even on a busy day. Yeah.
Bronte:
How do you keep your creative practise sustainable. You've been in the industry for so long and you've been a creative human for a long time. Like how do you sustain that energetically or like financially?
Emily:
Oh yeah, I think it's a bit up and down. I've definitely noticed over this period too, how sometimes I've kind of gone, "oh gee, another grant application or another this or another that." And I feel like it's hard. I just want to sit outside and read and like, it's hard to be motivated, especially around this time when it's felt a bit hopeless. I think there's so much energy that we give that I think it is really important to have downtime and to have space away from it, or to like really be mindful about how I'm taking care of myself around projects, especially when projects are quite emotionally demanding. Also I feel like there is a little bit of - sounds really bad - But, you know, like the pain of childbirth and how apparently women forget the pain, I think it's a bit of that. You just let go of like anything so that you can just carry on. That sounds really bleak.
Bronte:
It's true, though, especially if you've had quite a difficult experience and then you...
Emily:
Yeah. To kind of keep going, to have faith that the next project is going to be good.
Bronte:
Yeah. You do have to let go and just trust.
Emily:
You kind of have to have a lot of faith and try and have perspective. No project is all good or all bad. And to kind of keep learning from the things that maybe were challenging, but also to really probably - this is what I really need to keep doing more of - like celebrating the wins. And congratulating myself and not kind of thinking, "OK, well, what's the next thing I need to do? Or what's the next thing I need to work on? Oh yeah, but this didn't work or that..." Like actually just going, "No, that was really good. Well done." Or if it was a hard process, be like "you did it! You did it even though it was hard." Like feel good. I think that would make it more easily sustainable, a bit more of my own kind of positive reinforcement.
Bronte:
I think there's definitely space in a lot of people's lives for more celebration of their achievements.
Emily:
And celebration with each other.
Bronte:
Yeah. For each other as well. Lose some of that competitiveness with others and with yourself.
Emily:
Yeah. And I think financially the workshops and teaching have been really amazing. So that's been a really lovely way of making money, but also being able to still share what I love it. It's become quite a, I guess it was an unexpected thing. I never really thought that I would teach Bouffon. So now it's, I love it. It's wild.
Bronte:
Do you know if there's any coming up in 2021.
Emily:
Oh, I'm thinking of doing another eight week one next year. I just have to work out the dates.
Bronte:
Oh my goodness. We had email conversations before we even met!
Emily:
Because you and Leigh were going to do it! Were you going to do the two day one. I think you were maybe going to do the weekend one. With my friend Jaime who came from Portugal. She's amazing. She's an amazing actress and teacher. So we were going to do it together. But I'm going to do some next year.
Bronte:
That's so exciting. OK, final question. What brings you joy, creativity?
Emily:
Connection. Connecting with other actors.
Bronte:
So interesting, you performed in a one woman show.
Emily:
That's the audience.
Bronte:
Yeah you get all of the audience.
Emily:
All the audience becomes an actor. I know. Someone said to me "I've never sat in a performance before and felt like it asked so much of me." And I thought, "that's so true. And also were you in the front row?" That was very important that I didn't feel alone in that show obviously. Yeah, I feel like that is one of the most joyful things to connect with each other and to laugh in a room and to experience another world and other people's lives together. And I think it's working with other actors. In a really beautiful, free and loving way. As opposed to the other difficult parts. Like the moment on stage when you know you're about to crack up laughing and you can't. I mean, that's really scary also. But joyful.
Bronte:
I love those moments.
Emily:
Or a moment after a show where someone says to you, "this... That was my experience." When you know that someone was sitting in the dark and didn't feel alone, yeah.
Bronte:
Thanks so much for coming in Emily.
Emily:
Thank you. Thank you. It's been so nice. And I love listening to all of your other episodes. Yeah,they've been really... So much goodness. All of them, I'm like, "yes, I know that feeling. Exactly." So thank you for doing it.
Bronte:
Thank you for being here.
Emily:
My pleasure.
Bronte:
That was it. That was my chat with Emily Goddard. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. She is such a gorgeous human and I am so grateful that she came to spend some time with me and talk with me and that we've been able to share this conversation with you. Our next episode, is the beautiful Olivia Satchell. I'm so excited for you to hear this chat. It will be lovely. She is such an inspiration. But until then, my friends, enjoy your time with family, eat lots of good food and read lots of good things and spend some time in the sun. And I will be back in a few weeks with another episode. Stay creative.
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RESOURCES
This is Eden by Emily Goddard
Mess by Caroline Horton
Susie Dee (Dir. This is Eden)
Dione zanotto at Performance Based Meditation
- find meditations on the arts wellbeing collective page
Head over to the @chats.w.creatives instagram page to stay up to date with episodes and guests we have coming up!
Follow our host Bronte Charlotte on Instagram @bronteandsunshine
Follow this week's guest Emily Goddard on Instagram @emmyjgoddard
