Clare Bartholomew & Nicci Wilks

In late December I caught up with Clare Bartholomew and Nicci Wilks – two awesome performers, directors, teachers and creators from our community. I set out to do an interview about their show The Long Pigs, which they created with our dear departed friend Derek Ives. It’s a work they are remounting with a new performer, the excellent Mozes, for a season at the Adelaide Fringe, but the interview turned into a wide-ranging, fascinating conversation with Clare & Nicci about how the show came about, the difference between Clown and Bouffon, working in small companies, personal pre-show habits, dealing with negative self-talk and being Clown Doctors.

I was in my office in Mullumbimby and interviewed Clare & Nicci via Zoom, an online video chat application, and this is a transcription of the conversation. The interview could have continued for hours but Clare & Nicci were in the main rehearsal room at Circus Oz surrounded by the Long Pigs set and after an hour and a half, they thought maybe they should do some rehearsing!

This interview/conversation is long and in the future, the aim is that these kinds of interactions will end up as Podcasts but I hope you stick with it (or come back to it), as it’s a great conversation. We all laughed (and shed a few tears) while having it.

Hamish x

——start—–

Hamish- So should we do this?

Nicci- hang on – How did the butcher introduce his wife?…………………. Meat Patty! (she laughs) yes, let’s do it.

Hamish- (laughing) – So how did the Long Pigs come about?

Clare- The long story is; Derek, Nicci and I were at the (National) Circus Festival in Tasmania (in 2011), it was the first time all of us had been there. I hadn’t worked with either of them and had always wanted to – oh, I had worked with Nicci as a clown doctor.

Nicci- I had worked with Derek at Circus Monoxide and Circus Oz and I knew Clare.

Clare- And I’d sort of talked to Nicci about doing something for the cabaret and I’d sort of talked to Derek about doing something for the cabaret and then I thought, oh it’s a bit greedy you can’t do two spots so I suggested we do something together. I had a billy can full of red noses because I was teaching clown – for some reason I’d put them all in a black billy can in my car. We just had this idea about being the clown teachers who cut off the red nose clown noses. The three of us got together in the forest somewhere (Nicci-  on that dirt track) and the first thing we came up with (which has become the opening prologue of the show) – Us scuffling around counting the noses, realising we are one short and then leaving – and that’s sort of the start of the show. We did that at the cabaret that night and it was a bit of a hit, people were excited to see the three of us together, it worked really well and was funny. We came scuttling across the field to the bar and we had these white hospital gowns on which we’d dirtied all up and were carrying knives and an axe. Nicci had a red nose on and at the end of that scene we realise (Derek and I) and we chase her off. Then Tony (Rooke – festival creator) said why don’t you do another piece the next night. The next scene started with the lights coming up on the three of us at a little table (which Derek had whipped up) and Nicci had a bandage on her nose covered with blood and we had the black billy can and we did the ‘last supper scene’ with Derek dishing out noses to himself and me ending with Nicci getting served her own nose which she then eats.

Nicci- And that’s still in the show!

Clare- So we’d made the beginning and end of the show – we didn’t know that then, of course, we were just making stuff for the cabaret there.

Nicci- And then we decided to go to La Mama (in Melbourne) and see if we could be part of their ‘exploration season– at the end of each year La Mama had this ‘exploration season’. We applied to be part of that, which we got.

Clare- And we got a creative development grant to work on it for two weeks.

Nicci- I remember we were in Derek’s apartment and we decided we wanted to work with Susie Dee, a director we know. We worked for a few days on our own in Derek’s place and then she showed up and said “show me what you’ve got” – and all we had was (laughing) one song on the ukulele and had taught ourselves how to make balloon animals (Clare- Really? (she laughs)), yeah, that’s all we had and she was like “oh my god, we are getting a rehearsal space”. So we hired a space in North Fitzroy and that’s when she got us up on the floor to impro stuff.

Clare- So before we got together with Susie we ordered 4,000 red noses through Juggle Art and 3 inflatable clown ‘fat suits’. And we have footage of Derek riding around in one.

Nicci- That was after the first creation period.

Clare- No, it was before!

Nicci- How’s us arguing (she laughs) are you still there Hamish? (laughing)

Clare- Anyway, we did this development with Susie and then we did the first proper season (which you filmed Hamish) at La Mama in 2013. Then we went back to the Circus Festival with that version in 2013. Then we got a big grant to rework it for a season at 45 downstairs and all these designers came on board and it turned into a much bigger thing, bigger set etc.

Nicci- It sold out and extended its season and we did get a season at Sydney Festival out of it.

Clare- it was big and ambitious and beautiful.

Nicci- All the reviews from 45 Downstairs were like, “See it now before it goes to Europe”… Naaaaaaaaah!

Clare-(laughing)

A Video I made of the first (Preview) season of The Long Pigs at La Mama in 2013

 

Hamish- Can I backtrack a bit. What did it look like working with Susie on the floor, what did she get you guys to do?

Clare- She’d just get us to do improvised scores really.

Nicci- Yeah. That’s how the banana came about, remember, she just put a banana on the floor in the middle of a scene and see what would happen. We improvised a lot.

They were lengthy improvisations.

Clare- We had bits of wood and the table.

Nicci- We had the rope.

Clare- The Bike. We had little bits and pieces of things.

Hamish- Do you enjoy that way of working? Is it different to the other styles of working you do?

Clare- That’s how I usually create work. Improvising on the floor, doing structured improvisations around a theme, getting closer and closer to what you’re trying to do.

Nicci- I mean we’d discuss things. Like we knew we wanted to do something around religion and Jesus, so we improvised around that. So we’d discuss ideas and then get on the floor.

Clare- We wanted to take the piss out of red nose clowns.

Nicci- Yeah. We wanted to keep the beginning and end we’d worked out in Tassie.

Clare- We sorted had this idea that maybe we had been three red nose clowns that had been in a circus and something awful had happened like we’d let an elephant out that had trampled on and killed people and that we’d been outcast. So we were like the Bouffon clowns and we were like well if we can’t be the red nose clowns in the circus no one else can – that was one idea. We also had this idea of playing with Australia’s fear of the unknown stranger coming to our shores and that thing about ethnic cleansing and making everyone the same. We wanted to play with that with a clown style, using Clown as the art form to put something like that up. And in a way Long Pigs has become a bit of all those things, it’s not a clear narrative.

Nicci- Yeah, we’ve always struggled with the Bozo story.

Hamish- The Bozo story?

Clare- Yeah, In the version we made for 45 Downstairs, there’s an effigy of a clown that lives in a box and there’s a bell that rings, when the bell rings we have to do this routine to the ‘Bozo’ music and Bozo pops out of the box like a ‘jack in the box’ and then we put him back and get back to work.

Nicci- He’s like Big Brother, he’s like controlling us.

Clare- Like the red nose clown still controls us but we also ride over him on a bike and hammer him into the floor.

Nicci- Well I do! But hey we don’t want to give too much away, people might read this and want to go and see the show!

Clare- But I do remember really clearly Hamish, that the first show that we did at La Mama, that the three of us were at the top of the stairs and we all held hands and we looked at each other and went I’ve always wanted to make a show like this and I can’t imagine making it with anyone else. I remember that really clearly. So it really felt like we were onto something, even at the Circus Festival it felt really exciting.

Nicci- Yeah, we were all on the same page.

Clare- Very much so, we never argued about the style or the aesthetic. It was very easy in that way and to devise. The same with Susie.

Hamish- Oh, I remember so clearly, there was that feeling from all of us watching in Tassie (performers and industry folk) that it was really exciting, especially the crew who had known you all for awhile. I had had a couple of drinks haha and came running up to you guys being very excited saying – “we’ve got to make a short film of this” (*See video below).

Before The Long Pigs was a fully fledged show we made ‘Clown Scalpers’ just after the National Circus Festival 2011

Hamish- So would you describe yourselves as Dark Clowns in this show? How would you describe it?

Clare- Well it’s Bouffon

Hamish- Can you explain the difference between Bouffon and Clowning for those who don’t know.

Nicci- So in Clown, the audience is laughing at the Clown and in Bouffon, the Bouffon is laughing at the audience, but they don’t know it necessarily.

Clare- The Bouffon is sending people up from the crowd or the power structure. They want to undermine the hierarchy. So religion, politics, wealth.

Nicci- they’re taking the piss.

Clare- And they are holding up a mirror.

Nicci- And Bouffons are the outcasts of society. So historically, they would come to town once a year and mock the people of the town but the town folk wouldn’t know that that’s what they were doing and would be all laughing and having a great time together. That’s how Gaulier explained it (Philippe Gaulier – master clown teacher).

Clare- They were like the lepers who lived on the fringes of society, sometimes when you learn Bouffon you have lumps and bumps everywhere, kind of like having a clown nose when your first learning.

Nicci- Yeah, it’s the first step.

Clare- You don’t need it later like you don’t need a clown nose later. I read that when the Bouffons would come to town they would also like piss on the altar and fuck in the church, take over those places and be blasphemous. Mocking that power structure.

Hamish- So your characters in the Long Pigs are more Bouffons than Clowns?

Nicci- Yeah it’s funny because in the Bozo sections it goes into real “classic clown” routine and style. So it kind of throughout the show goes in and out of both. Like in the religious part of the show, especially when Clare and I go out into the audience it’s very clowny but then it turns in on itself and we’re laughing and mocking Jesus on a cross and having fun with it so it becomes a bit Bouffon.

 

 

Clare- And that’s what I like about the show. I don’t want to go ‘I’m making a clown show’. We’ve all trained in Clown, we’ve all trained in Bouffon – I met Derek studying Clown and Bouffon with Philippe Gaulier in the 90’s. So we just want to use all our skills and we’re also theatre actors.

Nicci- Also, as we discover more and more, ‘Clown’ doesn’t sell in Australia hahaha.

Clown doesn’t sell when you’re trying to get funding. In Europe it’s a different story.

When we put ourselves in a festival or go for an award we put it under Theatre, we don’t put it under Circus or even Physical Theatre, we see it as a theatre show

Hamish- So you’re both clown doctors, dealing with sick kids, families etc and then you go to do the Long Pigs and you’re going to be strung up by a rope, give birth to a banana and mock Jesus. How do you ‘click over’ to the dark side as it were?

Clare- I think it’s like anything you’re just jumping between headspaces.

Nicci- I think you’re just constantly adapting. I think life is just like that. When I am doing something like ‘Shit’ (critically acclaimed Australian play) I have to watch my language (she laughs).

Clare-  the hospital environment is so strong and it’s so clear where you are, there’s no ambiguity as to where you are.

Nicci- And even within the hospital scenario your constantly flicking between stuff as well, like you might be with a baby and then 10 minutes later you might be with a teenager who could be into drugs or whatever. And then you’re talking to a nurse or a parent etc. so yeah, your constantly flicking between headspaces.

Hamish- We’ll jump around a bit with questions. Do you feel there is a target audience for the show?

Clare- Well, when we did 45 Downstairs I remember the statistics were that over 50% of the audience were under twenty-eight and we got quite a young demographic, we don’t really know why. It’s hard to know really, like at Sydney Festival the tickets are more expensive you’re going to get theatre goers who are excited about Sydney Festival. So I think it’s tricky to pinpoint.

Nicci- We knew we weren’t making a kids show that’s for sure haha, we knew we wanted to make a dark clown show for an adult audience.

Clare- We also knew that people interested in clown and you (Nicci) and Derek, in particular, are so well known in the circus world, well I suppose we are all known in the circus industry, if you are into clown you’ve probably done a workshop with one of us, so we knew circus crew would show up but we weren’t really making it for anyone in particular. We didn’t think about that when we made it, we just made the show we wanted to do.

Nicci- I do think though the topics we wanted to explore kind of influenced what our audience would be.

Hamish- Is The Long Pigs, being a dark clown show, hard to sell? And in comparison to the other work you both do?

Nicci- Any work that I do seems to be hard to sell (she laughs)

Clare- Well we haven’t sold it haha. You know, we went to APAM (Australian Performing Arts Market) and we got told by so many people that we did such a great presentation – we did a 20 min excerpt – and not one grain of interest.

Nicci- Oh one guy from Hobart.

Clare- Oh yeah but we still haven’t gone there. And then Nicci and I went to a thing called Show Broker in Adelaide two years ago.

Nicci- And same again people loved it, we did a different presentation and people thought it was hilarious and they were a few maybes, maybe NZ, maybe Wollongong but nothing’s come of it.

Clare- So the reason we are remounting the show for Adelaide is really to test it out again and see if we should take it to Edinburgh and give it one last chance, can we sell this show? Because we don’t think it will sell in Australia, we think its too dark, commercially. I think when people come and see it they love it and if say the Adelaide Festival programmed it, it would go off like a frog in a sock but they’re not so… We think if it went to Hothouse or Dark Mofo etc. it would go off but it’s just about who’s going to program it. I don’t know. We’ve had Cluster Arts helping us for the last two and a half years and they’ve been amazing. They haven’t earned a cent from us (she laughs) they just believe in it.

Nicci- They’ve been so good!

 

Clare- (Pause) Obviously it was hard when Derek died and the question was; do we ever do the show again? ..or just leave it where it was?

Nicci- Which we definitely would’ve if we hadn’t of, while Derek was alive, gone and done APAM with Mozes. So while Derek was alive, we got accepted into APAM, all three of us were going to do it, then Derek got sick and the three of us discussed whether to still do it, D wanted us to still do it, so the three of us came up with Mozes to fill in for him and we did that 20 mins with him. If that didn’t happen I think we would’ve put this show away for sure because we wouldn’t have felt we had Derek’s blessing.

Clare- Also Mozes was really into the show.

Nicci- Yeah, when he saw it at Sydney Festival he was like “I want to do a show like that!”

Clare- And he remained into it. You know, he’s got a hard role and I appreciate that he still wants to be in the show now that Derek has passed away.

Nicci- Yes. It’s not easy for him. And we have to allow space for him to find his own feel and place within the show.

Clare- Yeah, it’ll change and be different. We don’t want him to just pretend to be Derek, we want him to be Mozes and bring his own style to the show because he is such a unique performer.

Hamish- So you haven’t started working with Mozes yet? (at the time of this interview in December 2018) He hasn’t been on the floor with it since APAM?

Clare- No, Mozes will come down for two weeks in Feb and then we’ll go straight to Adelaide.

 

 

Hamish- And how do you two feel emotionally about remounting it?

Nicci- I feel a bit overwhelmed.

Clare- Yeah it’s really hard sometimes but other times you’re just bustling around working hard, you know what it’s like, there’s so much to do.

Nicci- When we went to Clare’s dads the other day to get all the set and props, it was incredibly overwhelming, there was so much stuff and we hadn’t looked at most it since Derek had passed. Then here (to Circus Oz – to rehearse the show) because we are trying to downsize, we are like ‘why don’t we try that’ and ‘oh that works’, so I’ve had those thoughts like I’m sure that he’s here in the room making these things simpler for us…. and laughing at us probably, especially my knot tying.

Clare- And me carrying stuff, cause I’m not supposed to carry things cause I’m not a trained professional, not a circus performer hehehe… That’s how (in the show) I ended up being the bossy one with the clipboard because Nicci and Derek wouldn’t let me bring the table onto stage because I didn’t have the ‘skills’(she laughs). So I became the bossy one in the middle cause I wasn’t allowed to carry anything….I’m quite happy with that role. Yeah, he’s around.

Nicci- And there’s so much we don’t know. So much knowledge lost.

Clare- I don’t know anything about all the rigging and stuff.

Nicci- Derek and I had such a different knowledge to Clare and we used to do a lot of things together like the rigging etc. but he had so much knowledge that hasn’t been passed on….. and not just in this show.

Clare- In the world.

Nicci- In everything.

Clare- He was so clever and had so much knowledge in such specialised areas.

(Pause)

Nicci- I do feel like he’s here because there are some things we’ve come up within the last few days that I go ‘that’s just a bit too simple, why did that work?’

Clare- It’s a funny one.

Nicci- Yeah it is a funny one….. I do find it overwhelming.

Hamish- You could put a little picture of him somewhere, the audience doesn’t need to see it or know.

Nicci- Yeah, I think it is in with Bozo cause Bozo is like the ‘unseen force’, like the ‘king of clowns’, so we could have something of Derek in with him.

Clare- Bozo could wear one of D’s handkerchiefs.

Hamish- If there is shit going on in your life, or it’s an emotional time but the ‘show must go on’, do you as individuals have tools or conscious ways you deal with ‘bracketing’ or putting stuff aside when you have to go out and perform?

Nicci- I tend to leave any ‘life stuff’ behind quite early in the day cause I will start in my mind preparing for a show much earlier than a show call. I usually go through the whole show before I get there (for show call). And then prior to going on I have breathing stuff that I do.

Clare- I was trying to remember last time I had something awful going on – I was having to put my mum into a nursing home when I was in The Business and we were doing ‘The Masters’ and I just took more time for myself and was much quieter, saved my energy for the show and didn’t waste it on anything else and was really focussed.

Possibly having been a Clown Doctor for 19 years (and Nicci has been a clown doctor for 16 years) you kind of have to do that every day, like you don’t wake up each day and go ‘I can’t wait to go and make sick children laugh’, it’s not a natural thing to think of, your never really ‘in that mood’ but when you get there you’re just focused on what you’ve got to do.

Nicci- I tend to not put too much other stuff on in life when I’m doing a season. I try not to do anything else. I can go to bed, struggling with negative thoughts and not sleep, I can have days like that but I will wake up in the morning and I will talk to myself straight up, positive affirmations straight away.

Hamish- Do you write them or talk them?

Nicci- I talk them out loud, using my name and I also whisper them, there are lots of techniques. But also, don’t lay in bed!

Clare- Whereas I would lay in bed and press snooze a couple of times (laughing)

Nicci- I have to get up otherwise I would stay in that space. You know what I mean.

Hamish-  Jumping around questions again. Can you talk on – when you’re on stage performing is there a certain point, maybe it’s a certain number of performances, where you’re no longer just focused on what’s coming next and being ‘inside your performance’ and can be ‘outside of yourself’ and respond to how the audience is reacting?

Nicci- You mean ‘breathing on stage’.

Hamish- Is that what it’s called?

Nicci- That’s what I call it.

Clare- With Die Roten Punkte, in our usual show, I’ve done it so much that, yeah, I’m super comfortable and can get in that space. Any new show, I’m totally in my head, what’s happening next etc. but with a show that I’m comfortable with, like Die Roten Punkte, I’m totally aware of what else is going on, sometimes even thinking about what I’m going to do after the show hahaha

Nicci- Yeah, I used to be doing double trapeze and be thinking, like, ‘what is going on in my brain right now?’, I need to do a study on what happens in a performers brain and what the thought process is cause I find it fascinating.

Hamish- Yeah, I’m fascinated by it too.

Hamish- So what’s the ‘Breathing onstage’ thing.

Nicci- Well it’s slightly different, it’s about doing new work that you don’t know so well, so your minds constantly working, just trying to remember how it goes and you don’t breathe, then once you start to breathe, you can slow down, take time and be aware of what’s going on around you and the audience because I’m ‘breathing’.

Clare- I think with clowning and physical performing even in the early performances there’s still a level of being aware enough of your audience to react to them. Sure, once you get more comfortable you can enjoy it more and look forward to doing certain bits or lines, ‘that should get a laugh’ or whatever.

Nicci- When we first made the Pigs’ there were so many cues and things we had to do

Clare- I was totally in my head.

Nicci- So many buckets we had to move and that bucket had the banana in it, so if you picked up the wrong bucket you totally fucked it all up. It was a nightmare for all three of us, so I think the first bunch of shows it was ALL technical.

Clare- So much so that I felt removed from it. When the reviews started coming out and the reviews from 45 Downstairs were really good, in fact, some of the best reviews I’ve received for any show, ever, I felt so disconnected and that I wasn’t part of that experience because I was still – run round the thing, pick up the thing, go to there, look at Derek – you know, totally technical as Nicci said. So we were probably being funny and charismatic and doing all the things we had to do…

Nicci- Yeah but that was also structured into the choreography, the comedy, so when Clare says ‘I had to run round there and look at that thing’ like there was the laugh, you know what I mean. It was all choreographed as part of all that technical process so you were being funny even when you had that technical mind frame because you created it that way. Then after a few shows, you start to go ‘ah, well I know that bit’.

Clare- We also kept changing the show! We came in one day and changed something, came in the next day and changed the whole start of the show, our pathways etc. So it didn’t stick in my head for a while cause we changed it alot. But that’s like with all new work. It’s the same with songs or lines, with the Pigs it was choreography, with Die Roten Punkte and the show we did a few years ago – because we had just finished writing the songs – it was constantly trying to remember what the lyrics were that were coming up.

Hamish- On a broader note – What do you think some of the challenges facing smaller companies in Australia are?

Nicci- Well I can’t sell any of the shows that I’m in (she laughs). They aren’t commercial and they’re dark.

Hamish- So just to go off on a tangent – none of the great shows you’re in are selling not Shit or Animal or Caravan?

Nicci- Well I am going to the Venice Biennale to do Shit, only for one show though! Can’t seem to sell it anywhere else. Animal did Dark Mofo but nowhere else in Australia will buy Animal, it’s too dark, waaay to dark for them. We don’t have any contacts overseas for theatre shows, so it’s really hard. Yeah, Caravan after Melbourne Festival has had nothing but it had amazing feedback.

So anyway now I’m trying to sell that myself.

Animal Teaser (Warning: Mature Content)

 

Hamish- Wow, that’s just so depressing when all those amazing shows can’t sell.

Nicci- We haven’t been able to get anything for the Pigs…

Clare- We were lucky with the Sydney Festival really…

Nicci- Well we paid for Sydney Festival peoples airfares to come and see the show in Melbourne.

Clare- But Fiona Winning (Head of Programming Sydney Festival 2012 – 2017) was also a theatre maker, she is broad-minded and willing to take a risk.

Nicci- Same with Lyn Wallis at HotHouse Theatre, she took Shit, that was a massive risk and turned out to be their best selling show of the year I think.

Hamish- Yeah so this is what shits me, people (the audience) are up for it! It’s not that there isn’t an audience there for it, it’s that the ‘gatekeepers’, who are fronting the money admittedly and who have boards to answer to, put them in the too hard basket but that in turn ‘browns out’ the whole landscape.

Nicci- Yep.

Clare- Exactly

Hamish- So then people like you guys, ACROBAT etc. don’t get their work seen. So then for small companies like you guys to survive you’re constantly having to do other work to subsidise it.

Clare- yeah, well we’re putting three days aside this week to set this all up and work on it and Nicci and I aren’t getting paid anything. If we’re talking money, for Adelaide…

Nicci- We won’t get paid anything….

Clare- Well we got a small remount grant and if we take 40% at the box office, Nicci and I will be down $16,000… without paying ourselves anything for a month.

Nicci- mmmmph (laughing)

Clare- So you know, if we got 60% or 80% we would start to get paid something. So yeah we are taking a very big risk financially.

Nicci- And then if we don’t sell it we’ll never make that money back..

Nicci- So I think it’s about, like you say, the ‘gatekeepers’ and the ‘keepers’ of the venues and festivals to open up their programming a bit more.

Clare- Also they want the shiny new thing, even if it’s already done a Melbourne or Sydney Festival, why wouldn’t a Darwin, Perth or Adelaide Festival pick up the show. You know, every festival director wants to make their mark I suppose. I mean absolutely not everyone is going to like it, it’s not for everyone.

Hamish- yeah but if it was for everyone then it would be boring!

Nicci- Yeah and that’s what’s happening a lot with festivals these days, it’s all getting a bit commercial.

Clare- Spiegeltenty

Nicci- I mean I don’t have a show that goes in a Spiegeltent so…

Hamish- Yeah and the ‘variety show’ format is being proven to be very commercially successful…

Nicci- And there’s alcohol and bars attached

Clare-  And sponsors

Clare- And the Fringe Festivals like Fringe World in Perth last time I was there, give those style of shows better conditions, allow them to do two shows a night or have their own site, for the whole festival so the ticket sales are huge compared to the smaller companies that might run for a week from a Sunday to a Saturday, so have a broken weekend. They just have a whole different set of rules because they make the Festivals so much money. Which makes it tough.

Hamish- And the muggles are only going to see so much during the festival so end up going to those bigger shows.

Hamish- So, when you’re not just starting out and have many many years of experience with great track records as you both have, how do you get work up and out to be seen? When as you say, sort of best-case scenario with Adelaide is that you break even.

Clare- Yeah it’s really hard.

Nicci- You just have to passionate, if you’re passionate you’ll do it.

Clare- I had coffee with someone last week whose 32, whose part of a comedy duo and she was like ‘when does it get better Clare?’ I was like: ok you could get phenomenally successful tomorrow or you could be like me and plug away, plug away, make good shows, not so good shows, good shows and in another 16 years be doing what I’m doing. Which is not much different to what she’s doing now (she laughs), but maybe with more consistency. Like it may never change. She was like “ where’s the funding?’ – I don’t know, there is no funding for small companies to run themselves.

Nicci- I think for me, I just keep trying to make my own work, by that I mean the Pigs and making work with people I want to work with or on my own.

Clare- Yeah I’m not waiting for anyone to ring me.

Nicci- I’m in a different boat to Clare. Clare has this longstanding working relationship with Dan (Tobias – Die Roten Punkte), their duo. I must say the older I get the harder it is, to keep getting and making work. I think I have to really think about making different work now.

Hamish- That’s frustrating, because in my opinion the work you make with Susie Dee and others, that is dark and gritty, is great! Yes, it’s not for everyone but that’s the beauty of it.

Nicci- I spent most of my life, since I was 13, making circus work that was for everyone and the older you get it is harder and even though I’ve always been a diverse performer, I need to be able to be even more diverse in order to keep working. It is harder to keep working in the circus industry when you’re an old lady mmmmphh (she laughs) not that I’m an old lady, you know, to keep it up and maintain your body, maintain your health, maintain your skills and maintain getting a wage. Oooooff that’s a lot of things to maintain!

For those unfamiliar – A little taste of Otto & Astrid – Die Roten Punkte – at the Melbourne Comedy Festival 2016

Hamish- You both have such a wealth of experience and work in such a range of circus, cabaret, theatre as well as teaching, directing or being ‘outside eyes’ for people.

Clare- You kind of have to, as Nicci was saying. And quite frankly (I think for Nicci as well) the Clown Doctor part-time job is my lifesaver.

Nicci- Yeah, totally.

Clare- If I didn’t have the Clown Doctor job I don’t think I could be doing what I’m doing. Because it’s incredibly flexible. Not only does it sharpen your skills every week because you’re working with a different person and in different situations.

Nicci- And improvising constantly

Clare- But they allow you to go away and do your other things and come back and go on the roster.

Hamish- Yeah right, that’s amazing.

Nicci- I just went to Lismore to work on a show for 2 months and then just came back and went on the roster. You can do that, go to Europe for the summer and come back on the roster. So without that, I don’t think I’d be still working in the industry.

Hamish-  It’s also not ‘commercial’ work, it’s not about bums on seats or success, yet it’s making a huge positive impact. How do you feel about doing that kind of work?

Clare- I love it. I also love the contrast of work. You know, Dan and I will go to Edinburgh and get obsessed with reviews and who’s coming to the show, how many tickets have we sold, can we sell the show – it’s ego driven in a way and more about the business, then you come back and do a Clown round, completely anonymous, it could have been good, it could have been bad, whatever, you’re just doing your work.

Nicci- It’s grounding work.

Clare- Yeah, it’s very grounding, very humbling. It’s the complete opposite to self-producing a show when you’re relying on that as income.

Nicci- I think it’s very good for a performer in the arts to be a Clown Doctor. You know, you meet people all day every day from all walks of life and it makes you go – Oh, when I was stressing out about that bump-in or whatever…yeah it doesn’t matter.

Clare- Yeah, this kid’s got cancer, the family is from Tasmania, they have a complicated home life.

Nicci- They can’t pay the parking meter out the front or ‘can you stay with my child while I go and move the car, cause the parking under the hospital is too expensive’. It’s like, god all that shit and stress you go through in the arts, ain’t worth it, cause it doesn’t mean anything.

Clare- It’s a real leveller.

Nicci- Yep

Hamish- When you were just starting did you find it hard not to emotionally take it home with you?

Clare- I think the first few times definitely.

Nicci- I still have some cases that I take home.

Clare- Yeah, particular children will get to you.

Nicci- Sometimes you make relationships with kids who are there for a long time, so that’s really hard to let go of.

Clare-  Sometimes you find out a child’s passed away when you’re not expecting it, you might rock up with your clown colleague, buoyant and ready to go and see someone and you find out they’ve passed away and they might have passed away 3 weeks ago. We aren’t part of the hospital system, we’re subcontractors, so we don’t know what’s happened and may never know. So it can be hard and weird. As far as taking it ‘home with you’ or being emotionally affected, you can’t really know or predict that, sometimes you just get really thrown by it. When you’re first starting out those ‘firsts’ are big, the first time you get pushed into a room by a nurse and the child is screaming as their burns bandages are getting changed and the door shuts behind you and you’re like ‘whoah’ and you’ve got 45 mins to try and distract this child as they go through redressing and your performing partners been taken into another room to deal with something else – things like that stay with you.

 

 

Hamish- So back to the interview, so I can try and wrap it up and let you get back to work. Do you have any advice for performers starting out or ones that want to run their own small companies?

Clare- Work with people that are better than you.

Nicci- Yes!

Clare- Get directors and outside eyes and take them out for coffee, get advice, get them to work on your show, PAY them to work on your show.

Nicci- WORK with a director, stop trying to direct your own show. Keep upskilling, I still go and train with amazing teachers and do workshops with Gaulier, you know, I’ll go to Europe or Sydney, wherever to learn off these people – keep upskilling! You’re never at the top of your game! The game’s ongoing.

Clare- Yeah don’t be complacent, work with the people who you saw perform and went ‘I want to do that’, seek out the people who inspired you and go work with them. Work with different people, mix it up, don’t just work with the same people.

And have GOOD COMMUNICATION with people you work with from the start, have an agreement between you that’s written, who owns this work? Whose show is this? Whose ideas are these? Right from the very beginning have an agreement. Don’t get 6 months down the track and then ‘whose show is it?’ Don’t be afraid of talking business with your friends and do the business separate from the creative. The business happens and then the creative. If you’re going to be independent and make stuff work you have to be able to talk the business. And have good communication, even if it means getting someone in to help mediate that, doesn’t have to be the most skilled mediator, just someone who is both/all your friend, don’t be afraid to get help. Cause those are the things that will make you come undone and then you won’t work with someone for 12 years, people fight then blurgh it all goes bad.

Nicci- I’m not so into the business side.

Clare- I am, I like to sort the business stuff out.

Hamish- I haven’t been so great on the business side, I’m working on it hahaha.

Nicci- I’m more concentrated on the work, making the work.

Clare- I think if you work freelance you have to be able to do both. Dan and I have had rough patches and have needed mediation in the past.

Nicci- Making work with people is difficult, you’re constantly putting yourself and your ideas out there and you’re going to go through a rollercoaster of emotions with them cause you’re all climbing through this thing to get to the bottom of the rainbow as it were. I often call Eli (Green – another fellow performer) when I get to that point in the process when it’s a struggle to create the work or the people you’re working with and we often ask each other; is it just that point in the creation? …that sticky point before it changes (and there always is one) and that’s the hard bit, how you get through that, survive that and come through the other end to create amazing work?

Clare- And that’s what Eli is for you – a friend or mentor, someone who can see that’s where you’re at in the process and help you get through it.

Hamish- You both have been doing this a long time – can you recognise in yourselves when you are going through those slumps in a process and there’s that negative self-talk and therefore not indulge it?

Nicci- I can recognise and see where I am at in the process these days, where as I look back on myself as a younger performer and see that I wouldn’t see it at the time or couldn’t see that that was me in fear or in a complete unknown. Now I can step outside myself and see it but that’s not necessarily to say I can stop it or change it at that point, depends on what bit you’re at but I can see it all the time now.

Clare – Yeah I still get that feeling – if only I just broke my leg now and could get out of the next 2 weeks…

Nicci- (laughing)

Clare- You know just that pressure of that last push, just that thing of ‘how can I get off the hook?’ or ‘why do I do this to myself!’ I think you just have to push through. Nicci’s got a great expression – ‘just run towards it!’

Nicci- Well that’s a Kareena thing (Kareena Hodgson – The Manifesto/Carnival Cinema). She used to say that to me.

Clare- That’s funny cause Dan and I now say that to each other. What it might mean for us is, let’s come in early and do line runs, let’s work on the weekend, let’s not get to opening night and go ‘we could have worked harder’. Give yourself every opportunity for it to be good rather than an excuse or to sabotage it.

Nicci- I just had a thought about those pre-show rituals that we talked of earlier. I have a little mantra I tell myself around how well I know the show before I go on. I have my own one but it’s basically that I DO know the show really well, so well that I can relax, breathe and be open to react to whatever happens. I do it before every show.

Hamish- Well thanks so much for this wide-ranging conversation, I could talk all day with you two!

Nicci- Yeah I suppose we should go run this show! (she laughs)

Hamish- Just before you go – what’s the dream for the Piggies?

Nicci- Get some of those ‘gatekeepers’ to open up their gates! (she laughs)

Clare- I suppose the dream is – look if someone from Australia bought it we’d do it but presuming no one is, cause no one has – If the show goes well in Adelaide we take it to Edinburgh, we think it would go well in Europe!

Hamish- That’s tricky hey, best case scenario you break even in Adelaide, Take it to Edinburgh where its all about actually getting promoters there to sell it on because it’s incredibly rare to make any money there too.

Clare- No, you lose more money in Edinburgh, but hey, you gotta do something in August (she laughs)

Hamish- Well I hope it’s a different story, that you have silver buckets full of cash.

(Pause)

Nicci- And I do think Derek would be happy….us doing this, I really do.

Clare- Yeah.

Hamish- Oh absolutely.

The Long Pigs 2016 Promo Clip

The Long Pigs runs at Adelaide Fringe from the 6th – 17th of March at Tandanya Theatre – MORE INFO & TIX HERE

Also, There will be a rare season of SHIT  from the 22nd May to 9th June at ’45 Downstairs’ in Melbourne (Book Tix Here). It is a fundraiser season to help them get to Venice – Get a Taste of SHIT below – (Warning – Very Strong Language).

*I’d like to make note of and celebrate the fact that the WHOLE team, cast & creatives, behind SHIT are all women!

More of The Long Pigs –

Website

Facebook

[The Long Pigs is Supported by the legends at Cluster Arts]

Huge big ups to Clare and Nicci for this interview. I wish the Piggies all the best and hope the show carries on and has a long and fruitful Life.

I hope all you readers out there enjoyed our conversation.

Peace,

Hamish

I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the life & work of my dear friend Derek Ives (20/03/1968 – 27/04/2016) RIP – HOLD FAST.

 

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Nicci Wilks – Performer, Director, Teacher, Creator

Nicci is a freelance artist continually creating and performing works of various art forms. She began her career with the Flying Fruit Fly Circus. She has trained in theatre and circus around the globe including: The Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe (China), the John Palacy Trapeze Volant School (France), Ecole Philippe Gaulier (France), La Fura Dels Baus (Spain), Witness Relocation (New York), Chiara Guidi (Italy) and specifically in circus in Montreal, Norway and Germany. Nicci has worked with a number of companies including: Circus Oz, Melbourne Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, KAGE, CIRCA, Melbourne Workers Theatre, Hothouse Theatre,
Monoxide Circus, Born In A Taxi, Dislocate, Legs On The Wall, NORPA and Retro Futurismus. She was Assistant Director and performer for The 24 Hour Experience (Festival of Live Art) and for the award winning show Taxi by Dee & Cornelius. Her one-woman intimate show The Teensy Top has been presented at The Victorian Arts Centre, The Adelaide Festival Centre as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and The French Festival, Hoopla Festival and The Tasmanian Circus Festival. She has performed in 12 different languages at numerous international theatres and festivals. She also works as a Clown Doctor for The Humour Foundation. Nicci has created many new works as a performer and creator/devisor with various independent artists and companies throughout Australia and also as a solo artist. In 2018 she directed Party Ghost starring Olivia Porter and Jarred Dewey. She is a performer and co-devisor of the highly acclaimed show The Long Pigs (nominated for 3 Green Room awards). She is a performer in the critically acclaimed production of SHIT by Patricia Cornelius (winner 4 Green Room awards) and played a dog for Malthouse Theatre’s production of Normal Suburban Planetary Meltdown by Angus Cerini. Recently she was a co-creator and performer of ANIMAL (winner 4 Green Room awards) and the production of Caravanwhich had it’s world premier at the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts.

Clare Bartholomew – Performer, Director, Teacher, Creator

Since 2006 she has co-produced with her company Salvador Dinosaur, the highly successful cabaret/comedy act Otto & Astrid – Die Roten Punkte (DRP) a German indie pop punk duo that has won numerous awards at arts festivals around the world including being nominated for ten Green Room Awards and winning Best Production – Cabaret 2008 and also Best Production – Cabaret in 2014 in Melbourne.

Overseas they have won Best English Production – Montreal Fringe, Best Comedy – Victoria Fringe (2008/10), Most Outstanding Production – Ottawa Fringe, nominated for a Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe 2009 and nominated for a TO&ST Cabaret Award (Time Out – Soho Theatre) in 2013.

Since 2007 Die Roten Punkte has been performed at Joe’s Pub, Barrow Street Theatre (off Broadway) and Ars Nova all in NYC, Sydney Opera House, Brisbane Powerhouse, The Melbourne International Comedy Festival, The Wildside Festival – Montreal, Auckland International Arts Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Adelaide Fringe Festival, The Dublin Fringe, The Perth International Arts Festival, all over the UK, Spoleto Festival USA, Blumenthal Performing Arts Centre – North Carolina, Rurfestspiele Festival, Recklinghausen, Bar Jeder Vernunft, Berlin, Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Michigan, Sushi Arts – San Diego, NZ for Christchurch Arts Fest, Tauranga Arts Fest, Nelson International Arts Fest and Taranaki International Arts Festival, Off Centre Festival – Segerstrom Performing Arts Centre, Costa Mesa, California, Revolutions Theatre Festival, Alburquerque, New Mexico, Just For Laughs – Montreal, Soho Theatre – London and to every major city across Canada, numerous times.

Recently with Salvador Dinosaur she also co-created the award winning solo show by Daniel Tobias – The Orchid and the Crow, winner of Greenroom Award for Best Writing – Cabaret, Most Outstanding Solo Show – Ottawa Fringe and Best Solo Performance – London Free Press. They also wrote a new contemporary children’s musical called Sunny Ray and the Magnificent Moon and have just collaborated with Circus Oz on a new show called Rock Bang which premiered at The Malthouse Theatre and just returned from Sydney Festival.

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