The Nightline

Australian Director Roslyn Oades is known for her pioneering work in the field of headphone verbatim and audio-driven performance. Working with Sound Artist Bob Scott, they have created what the host who greets us informs us is 35 minutes and 33 seconds of sometimes challenging, often compelling theatre that reveals the real life experiences of the sleepless who reach out to The Nightline. In late 2020, Oades and her collaborators put out a call, ‘If you’re an insomniac, night owl or dreamer we want to hear what keeps you up at night’. And so this unique, somewhat quirky piece of theatre was born.

In collated interviews representing all Australian states, and thus invoking an ‘Australian experience’, Oades says, ‘I’ve got this really broad cross-section of people from different class backgrounds, different night shift occupations, a lot of insomniacs who have similar patterns of thinking going around in their heads.’ It is through this personal and cultural breadth that we are exposed to joy, desperation, the mundane and the sick and weary.

Hosted and performed within Adelaide’s iconic Queen’s Theatre, the audience is ushered into an unremarkable space by Concierge Katia Molino, in imposed silence. Each person is directed to sit at a different round, lit table that holds a 1970’s style telephone. Each has a simple set of alternate channels from which we are gestured to choose. Somewhat cynically, I assumed that we were really all listening to the same stories, but when my companion and I shared stories later, it became apparent that whilst there are common themes, each channel was unique, making sense of the over 600 anonymous calls that form this broad tapestry of human reflection and experience. There is no doubt technically, that the Switchboard design by Greg Cameron is an aural masterpiece of complexity. Cleverly, Lighting Design and Coding by Fausto Brusamolino links what is undoubtedly a wide range of dispirit, but cleverly curated stories. Sound effects, including rain and birdsong, are interesting, but not critical to the experience.

The Curator gestures to us and each audience member carefully lifts up their handset, somewhat cautiously plugging into the lives and stories of invisible, anonymous people. The calls, recorded between midnight and 6am, are sometimes provocative, sometimes tragic, and sometimes mundane. I listened in to a hardened criminal facing 18 counts of assaulting Police. He is a career criminal, violent, a drunkard, a drifter, and it is, of course, not his fault. A woman with a neurological disorder, akin to Parkinson’s disease, shares a life of failed relationships due to constant twitching, thrashing and 15 years of no more than 45 minutes sleep at a time. A desperate older woman sighs and groans about her endless cycle of alcohol, sleeplessness, daytime slumber and regular hours of night time loneliness.

Having said that, it should not be construed that The Nightline is all misery and gloom. My channel also included a joyful father doing the early morning feed follow up, soothing and savouring time with his new baby and, finally, I was revisited by the voices, hoping that their thoughts were useful, encouraging people to be kind, to keep trying and reassuring me that I was not alone.

This is unique theatre with a strong Australian flavor. It is also a Festival worthy experience that is very ‘COVID friendly’ in times when we need the strength of diverse Australian voices and experiences.

Jude Hines

Photographer: Tony Lewis'

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