Paul in Sweet Dreams; photo by Alison Huth

interview by Simon Sellars

‘Sweet Dreams: Shaken not Stirred’ was originally published in Subterrain magazine #1, December 2005.

Theatremakers Nadja Kostich and Jeremy Angerson began a rewarding collaboration with Big Issue vendors after seeing a TV ad featuring several sellers singing for their supper. According to Jeremy, “we stopped to chat to some vendors and asked questions about how they got to occupy their pitch on the street corners of the city. We both knew this was the next project, after they made us laugh and cry with their experiences”. From there, Sweet Dreams was born, a play drawing upon the dreams of homeless and dispossessed people via video projections and light shows, a four-piece band provided live accompaniment (baroque, jazz and so on) and two dancers punctuating the enactments with impressionistic body stylings. I wondered: how did the directors find the experience?

When Sweet Dreams was all done and dusted, how did you pull up?

NADJA: When the final curtain fell and Jim had finished one of his post-show spruiks to the audience, we collapsed into tears. We loved these guys and they felt it but there was so much rawness there. How could there not be? This was a group who had survived addiction; physical, emotional and sexual abuse; incarceration, street life. Everyone in our team, cast and crew, felt the pressure of mounting this show. There were tears and people going off, pre- and post-show, but somehow we all maintained a friendship.

It sounds draining. Would you do it again?

NADJA: Once is all we have in us. As a two-person company with a baby that needed attention and no funding left, there was no way on earth for us to withstand the rigour and discipline of applying for further funding, or of actually going on tour. The reception to the show was overwhelming and funding bodies encouraged us to apply, but unfortunately we had not one ounce of energy to keep going.

I asked the performers about the process of getting their stories onto the stage. None seemed reluctant to reveal the most intimate details of their lives.

JEREMY: We didn’t have to do any convincing. The idea was that it was a process of attraction. We spoke to all the Big Issue vendors at various meetings, and it was Kylie, Paul, Robbie, Allan and Jim that ended up staying. Sometimes in rehearsals they revealed that a particular aspect of their story had touched a nerve, or that they’d had a bad dream, but more than anything they wanted their stories seen, heard and understood. When they specifically asked us to keep something out we did.

How were you able to synthesise these stories into a coherent and empathetic whole, from an outsider’s perspective?

NADJA: It was difficult but that’s the nature of any artistic process, not just because we haven’t experienced homelessness. We approached the performers as human beings first and worked with the raw material they gave us, looking for links and patterns. Each person played a character based on themselves, because everything had to be distilled into an essence. Much material was left out and only particular stories left in. Our approach is to make soulful theatre, looking for what makes us human – the whole spectrum – without judging it, vilifying it or glamourising it.

Kylie and Robert, in particular, praised your working methods and said that you got the best out of each of them. Can you give a little insight into your method?

NADJA: Our process was gradual and respectful: we chatted individually, then filmed interviews, and then the workshopping process began, with a focus on bonding the group and finding out what they had in common. We also worked individually with improvisations. Kylie and Robbie were great to work with at all times, and Paul was very committed from the start. Jim’s an absolute character, a renegade, and it was great to see Allan blossom as a performer. They all shone in the play and loved performing and they felt their impact on others. Maybe the hardest thing for Allan was experiencing the success of the show and not knowing what to do with that feeling. He kept saying that everything he ever did had turned to shit. He just didn’t know what to do with this experience. When we saw him shortly after the end, he said he had gone and slept in an alleyway one night. He has a flat, so we asked ‘why’. He said he didn’t know – he just wanted to feel that feeling again.

Allan told me that he expected some emotional support after the play had ended. But is counselling part of your role? Is it unfair to expect you to shoulder that burden?

JEREMY: We would not know where to begin in counselling Allan or anyone. But it’s probably easy to project hopes and fears onto people in leadership positions in these kinds of projects. For some you represent a missing parental figure from whom the participant seeks love and approval, for others an authority figure to fight and rebel against. A few pretty much keep their projections to themselves and see you for what you are: just a human being giving it everything, with the flaws and the beauty sitting side by side. Jim rings us regularly for a chat and the latest footy tips. And it was great to bump into him and Allan the other day and find out they’re in another play together. Thankfully, we didn’t put them off the theatre experience altogether!

Image of Jim in Sweet Dreams; photo by Alison Huth

Was the multimedia approach an accurate reflection of the content?

JEREMY: You can choose any medium provided it’s approached with honesty. The play began with the idea that it was about the dreams of the homeless, where the voices of the dispossessed could speak their visions of the future. We began with the idea of including different mediums, but we were ready to drop any that would have the appearance of being contrived or imposed. We planned on using a circus performer and she actually started work, but it immediately felt wrong and not truthful to the material so we stopped. Using video, dance and music seemed an appropriate expression of the characters’ inner and outer worlds, the parts they rarely reveal: their secret selves, hopes and dreams, and their nightmares.

What did you want your audience to get out of the play. What was the ultimate reaction?

NADJA: We had a vision that the audience would realise that there is nothing between them and the performers – that we are all connected as human beings. And we had a stunning reception! Twelve standing ovations – if you know Melbourne audiences you would realise how rare this is. People were overwhelmed, confronted, thrilled. We got great reviews, great pre-publicity; George Negus did a feature story. It really captured people’s imaginations and hearts.

Do you think there should be more funding for arts practice with respect to homeless and marginalised people?

JEREMY: Yes. Our dream was that one of the Sweet Dreams vendors would take on the job of arts coordinator in their community – to organise facilitators to come and run workshops on every arts subject imaginable. But unfortunately we don’t have the infrastructure to assist with or to mentor further activity. This is what leaves us with a feeling of incompletion, and maybe some of the vendors, too: we made this amazing thing together but we could not keep it alive because we did not have the resources. There’s great sadness in that.