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 Ron Hughes speaks to Adelaide playwright Stephen House about his latest production.
Stephen House has been a busy man lately. After a season of Meeting Reg, he was off to Varanassi in India where he worked on poetry, photography and a novel. Then he came back to Australia to work on a youth project The Yum Yum Room, followed by another stint in India. Now he's back on his home turf with the production of a brand new play: Borrowed Time.
"It's strange, because I've gone from working with a group of youths to working with seven very experienced actors – all of them are in their sixties with at least 30 years' acting experience," said House.
"I walk into that rehearsal room and there are 200 years of acting experience – and me!"
The play deals with a group of old show business colleagues who are reunited for a special reason. Although they were all successful at one time, House says, "The last 35 years haven't been kind to these people."
"The play deals with what happens when all of these extreme people come together in one place," House smiles. "I love that, I love writing extreme characters. Anyone who has seen my plays knows I really like going out there, going to the extremes. It's my way of getting at all that raw stuff which constitutes the real human condition."
Of course the play deals with issues of ageing. The production has been supported by a Positive Ageing Grant from the Government of SA, as well as an Arts SA grant. "I'm not a young man myself any more," House says matter-of-factly. "I'll be 50 next birthday, so although everyone in the cast is a bit older than me, I really feel like we are contemporaries."
Five of the seven cast members have worked with House before and he admits, "It's almost like there's something of a team forming around what I do.
He never stands still for long, however. His next project is a term as a writer in residence in Tasmania where he will work on his next play, followed possibly by taking The Yum Yum Room to the Eyre Peninsula and work with a new group of young people.
"That's what I like, doing something new, new experiences, producing new work, working with new people."
One interesting aspect of House's career is that, as a gay playwright, he says he's never produced a gay play.
"I've never written a play that doesn't contain some gay theme, but I've never written a 'gay play'. Having said that, every play I write has at least one not-straight character: gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender," he says.
"In fact I've never seen myself as a political writer, but I had somebody once tell me that I was very political. The reason was that my plays always present non-straight characters in the mix with straight characters, not in isolation – and that is actually quite a political statement."
Borrowed Time
The Bakehouse Theatre
255 Angas St, Adelaide
Friday July 25 to Saturday August 9.
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