AustLit

'In February 2021 I interviewed Marion May Campbell as part of my ongoing research into contemporary feminist creative practice. This text is an amalgamation of the interview that also includes my poetic and critical reflections that emerged as I was transcribing. Many thanks to Marion for her generosity in being open to the interview and the resulting form of our exchanges.' (Introduction)

'Sitting high in the John Golden Theatre on Broadway, the opening moments of Jeremy O Harris’s Slave Play leave me open-mouthed. A black woman, dressed simply and of another era – one might presume as a slave – enters the space with a broom. She is sweeping. After a moment, the song ‘Work’ by Rhianna starts to play. Loud and jaunty. The woman is aware of the music. She starts to enjoy it. She starts dancing, and twerking. We are in a mixed world. It is exciting and disorienting. She is interrupted by the arrival of a white man, scrawny, not a rich man, but holding power largely by the whip evident on his person.' (Introduction)

'I don’t know when I first saw it / In a memory, a premonition, or a dream.

'It was a house and it was on fire / I was the house and I was on fire.

'A suburban netball team. A new player. Cass says she wants to fit in but if she won’t play by their rules why does she bother coming at all? She claims to see something they cannot, a warning of sorts. All the other women want to do is play. But this player will push each of them to a point of furious revelation. Nothing will be left on the court once these women are done with their reckoning.

'A sweaty play about the petty and the profound, the mundane and the mythic, Contest asks how we might be with each other if we don’t have to win.

'Contest is presented in association with New Working Group and Bureau of Works.' (Production summary)

'I feel ashamed, facing a roomful of artists on the first day of rehearsals for my new play Contest. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I tried my hardest but we didn’t get the Creative Victoria funding.’ Everyone in the room has already signed on for the project, based on modest fees, thanks to other funding we have secured. The Creative Victoria money would have ensured paying all actors at Equity (performance industry union) minimum rates.'  (Introduction)

'The conversations I kept hearing about the TV version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale – in the media, on social media, at gatherings – started to irritate me. About how it could happen: it’s not that farfetched; America is on the brink of a totalitarian regime and Australia’s not far behind; it happens to women all around the world already you know, especially in those countries where women are not allowed to drive.' (Introduction)