Leaving drama for a life
ress in getting through a book is slow. I could write those two pages, Rayson thought, and the idea for her book grew.
She’s at the beginning of a publicity tour, stopping at writers’ festivals throughout Australia, 50 stops in all.
But her active mind has moved forward and she is imagining touring the book as a one-woman show.
“I bizarrely trained as an actor in the ’70s so it wouldn’t be totally odd me doing this,” she said.
“I’ve trialled a few pieces at a few public events, so I’m not going off completely halfcocked, just a little bit cocked.”
Her husband is imagining himself travelling with her, in the “Winnebago tour”.
“I’ll be the one nailing the posters on the doors of RSL clubs,’’ she laughed and then catapulted from that idea to imagine the film of the tour.
“It’s that stuff that being a writer gives you a passport to adventures,” she laughed. “It gives you an inroad to doing things and talking to people who you might not have talked to otherwise.”
Rayson has a strong connection with Geelong; those early days of acting were spent, in part, with the Mill Theatre in the mid-1980s.
And there is the family holiday house in Aireys Inlet, a bolt hole and escape from the madding crowds of Melbourne. It is also the place where Rayson is involved in the volunteer hooded plovers program, a conservation effort to protect a fragile species.
And though Rayson’s next play was written in Manhattan, it is set firmly in the Otways with tiger quolls at its centre.
“Extinction is about a man who hits a tiger quoll and then puts money into research, but he is also the executive director of a big coal mining outfit,” Rayson said. “It’s about how are we are to live in the current context of climate change. There are lots of really tricky dilemmas ethically.”
The Conservation Ecology Centre at Cape Otway provided inspiration for the playwright, who stayed with the founders of the tiger quoll conservation centre.
“Hannie saw the program going on and it was a nice fit for the direction she wanted to take the play,” centre founder Lizzie Corke said. “She has explored the real-life conversation issues we have here.”
Rayson said it was “all systems go’’, with the script in place and discussions with GPAC in progress for a local production of Extinction.
“I’m really excited about it. It would be great to do it there. It is the gateway to the Great Ocean Road,” she said.
GPAC manager Jill Smith described the process as “elongated”, but confirmed talks had gone on for some time on raising funds to produce what she called an important work. The time frame was unknown, but it wouldn’t be until next year.
“Hannie is keen to premiere it here near where it is based, but I have to raise the money to get it up,” Ms Smith said.
“GPAC wants to be in a position where we can do that, produce the work and then get it on tour across the country.” HELLO, BEAUTIFUL! SCENES FROM A LIFE BY HANNIE RAYSON, PUBLISHED BY TEXT PUBLISHING, RRP $29.99.