Connection and solitude: Demure’s Em Simonne took a sneak peek at Olive Weeks’ world premiere of A Play About Ivy, That is Really About June ahead of Melbourne Fringe season.
On a brisk Tuesday night down an unassuming alleyway behind Fitzroy North’s bar, Longplay, I am met with two actors, Izzy Ford and Ella Newton, sitting beside each other on an undressed set. Director and writer Olive Weeks takes a place in an armchair to their right. After brief introductions, the lights dim and both players command the attention of all in the room. The performance of the first two scenes in Weeks new play, A Play About Ivy, That is Really About June was captivating, even if it was just a read through. Works written with such honesty can often speak for themselves, and while both Ford and Newton’s performances perhaps deserve write-ups of their own, I left the small cinema moved by the language. The poetic yet natural construction of a script that seemed to articulate some of the deepest feelings of self.
The laying bare of the intimate thoughts and inner turmoil of Ivy, slowly reveal the surrounding relationships of her world. Weeks is a natural wordsmith. Evocative language seeps off the pages of Ivy’s opening monologue, beautifully crafting words for the teeming and sometimes painful desire to “get closer”. The desire for a kind of “satisfaction”, the intimacy that so many of us seek, yet can be so rare; especially in the current post-pandemic world that has arguably left some of us lonelier that ever.
Weeks divulges that the play was birthed in the height of this year’s summer, after two years of isolation and introspection that we all endured throughout lockdown. This period for Weeks was marked with an all-consuming feeling of being entirely in love with the people around you, heightened by the summer sun. A feeling so profound, “rooted in theatrically” that it couldn’t be explored in a medium other than a playscript. Weeks verbalises a feeling that I have experienced for much of my life, summer is inextricably intertwined with a fragile feeling of… vivaciousness, yet it’s delicate, fleeting, one slip and it could all crumble. This work navigates the frank solitude of sweaty, sticky, itchy, sleepless nights, alongside the sweet warmth of togetherness, and their contrast, underscoring the fragile foundations these positions can rest on.
The plays plot follows Ivy as she is faced with living alone for the first time after two years of living with her best friend, June. The foundational framework of the plot, centred around two friends living together, is loosely based off the experience of Weeks and Newton themselves. The play’s themes revolve around the murky waters that flow between platonic and romantic love, the supporting beams of friendship and connection, and the complex feelings of grappling with the validity of heartbreak. Am I allowed to feel this way?
While some of the themes in this play are universal, they are explored in a way that is highly unique, not often seen in mainstream theatre. Olive Weeks’ debut work highlights the effervescence of female companionship. The intimate connection between two women is seldom explored in mainstream popular culture, excluding the funny best friend archetype, who usually only exists to support the main character in their romantic arc. Weeks explores the connection of these two characters through intelligent, witty, and evocative dialogue that makes you laugh just as easily as it makes you want to cry. This exploration of not only platonic love between friends but also the inherent queerness of the script, drawn somewhat from Weeks’ own experience of sexual identity, imbues a unique honestly to the playscript while dealing with relational ambiguity. While the queerness in the script is beautiful, Weeks warns against typecasting the play as merely a “queer play” highlighting there is much more going on. Weeks works to explore the blurry, complexity of identity, sexuality, and queer connection in co-existence with effervescent femme friendship.
While this is indeed “a play about Ivy that is really about June”, I would argue that this is really a play about ourselves and the human condition, how we as queer women, or even just as people, traverse seasons of aloneness and connection.
A Play About Ivy, That is Really About June debuts this Melbourne fringe season at Theatre Works on the 5th of October with five shows following ending on Saturday the 8th. Join Ivy as she reconciles with her own company, heartbreak, and solitude. Get lost in this dynamic play dancing with memory, humour, and poetry. Experience this brazenly heartfelt and delicately intimate World Premiere at Melbourne Fringe.
Book tickets here: https://melbournefringe.com.au/event/a-play-about-ivy-that-is-really-about-june/
Words: Em Simonne
Images: Ignatz Freer
Dates and Times
Wednesday 5 October - 9.00 pm
Thursday 6 October - 4.00 pm
Thursday 6 October - 9.00 pm
Friday 7 October - 9.00 pm
Saturday 8 October - 4.00 pm
Saturday 8 October - 9.00 pm
Venue
Theatre Works
Duration
60 Minutes
Produced by
FlickFlickCity
Writer/Director
Olive Weeks
Actors
Ivy: Izzy Ford
June: Ella Newton (also Script Dramaturg )
