Do you have enough water? / You’ve got someone to bring you water, right? 

How do you bathe? / I couldn’t survive without a hot shower!

But where do you go to the toilet? / You must go to the toilet?

Are you here the whole time? / You can’t step outside this square?! / Do you stay here overnight?

Do you sleep OK? / I bet you don’t get much sleep?

What do you need? / Is there anything you really want? / Can you ask for things?

How long did it take you to get clothes? / What was the first thing you were given? 

Were you really completely naked? / I could never be naked in front of so many strangers. / Aren’t you the naked people? Why aren’t you still naked?

Did you really start with nothing? / So none of this stuff was here when you started?

What’s going on? / What are you doing? / Is this a play?

Throughout the ten days of Deliverance at the Adelaide Fringe, the performers engaged in many hundreds of separate conversations with the people of Adelaide, answering many thousands of questions.

Unsurprisingly, certain queries kept coming up.

When people asked if we were sick of answering the same thing over and over we said, Yes, of course, and no, not at all! We said that it was part of our job and that returning to these themes again and again - the task of continuously re-articulating what we were doing - prompted many new thoughts for us and strengthened existing ones, and also helped us to forge an oral record of our project.

One question at a time over the coming weeks we will be posting a written record of that immense exchange. Once posted, you will be able to read all of the Frequently Asked Questions in the same place by going directly to: http://deliverance-art.tumblr.com/tagged/FAQ

Any questions?

It’s here.

I was supposed to write this post last night, according to the homework we had set ourselves, but after the rush of this final day on the outside I now have only 10 minutes left before we are finished with computers, planning, and preparations both psychological and practical. After that we will be in free fall, relinquishing our routines, habits, material possesions, expectations, and control. This is what we have waited for for all these months and with what we are so in love.

A huge part of what I am in love with is Penny and Will. The forced intimacy of this situation couldn’t have chosen better companions and the navigation of ourselves feels like it has been done in the embrace of exemplary care. In the next ten days we will fret, bicker and fumble, I am sure, but we will also laugh, dance and hold one another tightly, and for this I am deeply grateful. I have a strong sense of this piece being the result of the dynamic of we three, built by each of us into what it is, impossible to divide into parts. No one of us ‘thought of this’, no one of us owns it more than the others; without one of us it ceases to exist. There is a great strength in this trio and on this dynamic it thrives.

Here it is: whatever it will be.

I’m not sure what I thought I would feel like right now.

Calm, centred, zen?

Crazy, doubtful, terrified?

I feel bits of all of those, but not overwhelmingly so.

I am ready to go into the space, now.

It has been a long time coming. So many discussions, so many doubts, so many fears, so many problems, so many logistical ‘things’, so much time spent on computers and thinking about things to do with computers which anyone who knows me knows is a recipe for disaster as I am totally hopeless at anything to do with computers, so many hours spent wondering what it will be like, then getting cranky at myself for preempting, so many hopes for this little project that has grown bigger every day … 

I am confident that this will be a really affirming experience. I am also across the board that it will be bloody difficult at times and I will feel out of my depth at others. I go into the piece knowing this and hoping to overcome these fears, that can be so crippling in projects like Deliverance, and in everyday life.

I am so grateful to my two wonderful friends for going through this endeavour with me. For loving and accepting me, warts and all, and for committing to this extradordinary leap of faith. I love them so dearly, and would not be doing this with anyone but these two people.

I thank everyone who has engaged and will engage with this piece. I hope it raises more questions than answers. 

I especially want to thank my family for supporting me in everything I do, nomatter how far removed it is from tractor driving or working in a bank. 

I am ready for Deliverance, now. 

Love, Pen x

These are the things I do daily: 

       * I often wake up an hour or so before my alarm. This makes me so smug to have another hour left to snuggle back into my doona, but also a little anxious about the forthcoming alarm.

·      * The alarm will go off and I will usually hit snooze – 1, 2 or even 3 times!

·      * On days I don’t work or don’t have something on in the morning, I will go for a jog along the river.

·      * Upon either returning from a jog or getting out of bed, I will put the kettle on, go to the toilet to wee and then sit down to a breakfast of plunger coffee and a bowl of Special K.

·      * The aim of this breakfast is to get me to poo, sometimes this happens which is glorious, sometimes it doesn’t which is disappointing.

·     *  I take a shower, scrub my face, brush my teeth, blowdry my fringe, sometimes put on makeup, sometimes not, pick an outfit depending on how I feel and the weather (but admittedly, mainly on how I feel).

·     *  If I cycle I put some great music on and cruise around happily to wherever I have to go to – work/ meet up with a friend to write/ rehearsal/ uni.

·     *  If I drive I take an apple – either a crunchy granny smith or a crispy pink lady – and munch into it while flicking through the radio on my way to wherever I have to go – work/ meet up with a friend to write/ rehearsal/ uni.

·     *  I usually have more coffee, or perhaps a juice or sometimes a diet coke or lemonade during the day. And lots of water. I usually carry a water bottle with me.

·     *  Lunch will be something light or none at all – if at home some boiled eggs with spinach from the garden and tomato/ if I’m out sushi, or if I’m at a café with a friend writing I will treat myself to whatever I like – last time we met up was Wednesday and I had a BLT – it was amazing!

·     *  The afternoon will be spent in so many different ways – reading at my front table, on my computer in my room, perhaps jogging, perhaps a little workout in my bedroom (this is all making me sound much more fit than I am – it’s just that these are all things I do every week!), writing, hanging out with Whil and other friends, wishing work was over already so I could do any of the above …

·     *  I am more often out at night than at home. At a show, at a talk, at a pub, at a restaurant, at a friend’s house, at a movie, over the summer I spent much of it rehearsing, thinking about or performing a show. During these times I really enjoy having drinks (multiple) and talking with people – really talking with people. I love talking about what I’ve just seen, I love getting to know my friends better, because here in Melbourne most of my friends are people I’ve met in the last 2 years, if not 6 months, except of course for Whil and our othe very dear friend, both of whom I could never know enough about or spend enough time with anyway. I love night times for the endless possibilities they seem to present.

·     *  If I stay in I usually don’t drink at all, and almost always have the same dinner of baked white fish (Basa usually, but also Blue Granadier, Smoked Cod or occasionally Barramundi), with cracked pepper, salt, lemon and garlic accompanied by a salad – sometimes just a Greek salad but during these hot Summer nights it is often with mango, avocado, chilli, green beans, tomato, lettuce, celery, spring onion and almonds —- it is soooo delicious! This meal is my staple at home meal because it is fresh, easy and makes me feel good, every single time.

·      * My bed time routine is a quick shower to wash off the day, a face scrub, brush my teeth, comb my hair, get into my pjs with no undies, put cream on my face and hands, pour a tall glass of water and read for half an hour or so before turning out my light. I will really miss this part especially, it is very special to me, and since breaking up with Francois my bedtime has been like a rediscovery – my own room, my own bed, my own ritual.

* Please Note: I eat ice cream, nibble on nuts and chocolate, smoke occasionally, love a whiskey and have been known to take over a dancefloor until 8am in the morning. This is just to balance what I just re-read over as a very strict, pure lifestyle, and that is not always the case! 

Pen x

With no sleeps to go now, the focus is not on privation, but on the expansive. Not ‘Will you survive?!?’ But ‘How will you survive?’ A measured and interested enquiry: ‘I will be interested to see how your survival unfolds.’

I am interested to see how our survival unfolds. I am fascinated to discover the ways in which we will cope. I have no notion of it not working, or of us not surviving or not coping. I have complete trust in the kindness of friends and strangers, and, increasingly, more and more trust in my own and each of our capacities.

Someone told us the other day that our project was kind of like acting out the beginnings of a civilisation. That is amazing! And yesterday, during a radio interview, I started wondering out loud what it will be like not to move through space in the usual city ways - now in a car, now on my bike, now up an escalator, now on foot - for ten days. And, of course, no black mirrors: no vibrating smartphones, no emails, no little red flags notifying me of attention received, no news online. I will have the clearest head after ten days with none of that!

I wish there weren’t things left to the last minute (buying a cable, setting up a projector, printing a sign, etc.), and that I could sleep in some more, and then mooch about serenely over last suppers, but it is a festival, and so it goes.

I hope most of all that I work hard and work well at whatever the next 10 days turns out to be.

Many thanks to many people, but at the moment, thanks especially to Marion, Dave and Giemma, for looking after us.

xo, Whil