“Holding the Man”
by Timothy Conigrave
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/kez4oz/Album%201/Holding-Cover.jpg)
* Beware – Spoilers *
It is easy to forget. To allow the memories of the relatively recent past to slide away to a possibly helpful distance.
Australia's experience of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and '90s is thus ancient history, and so much of that time is gone: a time of the dead and the dying; vigil shifts at ward 17 in Saint Vincent’s Hospice; watching brilliant and beautiful men sliding into garbled dementia; polite efforts to avoid funeral scheduling conflicts; two full pages of obits in the Sydney Star Observer; anger and love and screaming horror at the waste of so many lives. Surprisingly easy to let all that go.
Timothy Conigrave's memoir, Holding the Man, which I re-read during the recent Christmas holiday period, is an act of urgent remembrance, an unflinching, devastating, moving and funny reanimation of that awful time. It is also the true story of two people in love.
There's a famous slogan from that time: "knowledge equals power". It still does, but knowledge isn't just safer sex and treatment regimens. It's also knowing how the past helps prevent recurrence.
Holding the Man is compelling, wrenching and essential. I laughed, and I wept. Put it on your reading list. It's an experience not to be missed.
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/kez4oz/Album%201/timothyconigrave-25pc.jpg)
Timothy Conigrave
Holding the Man is the best-selling memoir by the Australian writer, actor, and activist Timothy Conigrave. It was adapted for the stage by Tommy Murphy in 2006, and has become one of the most successful Australian stage productions in recent years.
Holding the Man was published in February 1995 by Penguin Books in Australia just a few months after Conigrave's death, and has since been published in Spain and North America. Holding the Man won the United Nations Human Rights Award for Non-Fiction in 1995 and was listed as one of the "100 Favourite Australian Books" by the Australian Society of Authors for its 40th anniversary in 2003.
Holding the Man tells the story of Tim's life, and centrally of his relationship with his lover of fifteen years, John Caleo. They met in the mid-1970s at Xavier College, a prestigious all-boys Jesuit Catholic school in Melbourne.
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/kez4oz/Album%201/Holding.jpg)
Tim Conigrave (L) and John Caleo (R)
The term "holding the man" comes from Australian rules football - it is a transgression that incurs a penalty. John Caleo was a star footballer at high school - captain of the football team - winning the Public Schools Best and Fairest trophy in 1976. He was also an avid supporter of the Essendon Football Club, one of the reasons Tim Conigrave appropriated the term as the book's title.
The stage version of the memoir, adapted by Tommy Murphy and directed by David Berthold, is one of the most successful Australian theatre productions of recent times and the winner of multiple awards. It premiered in 2006 in a critically acclaimed, sold-out season at Sydney's Griffin Theatre Company, Australia's leading new writing theatre, and became the company's highest-grossing production in its 30-year history. The production returned for a further five, highly successful seasons in various theatres around Australia, including the Griffin Theatre, Sydney Opera House, Belvoir Street Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse and the Melbourne Theatre Company.
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/kez4oz/Album%201/Holding-Play.jpg)
Matt Zemeres as John Caleo (L)
and Guy Edmonds as Tim Conigrave (R)
in the Griffin Theatre production of
Holding the Man
Sydney 2006
The North American premiere of Holding the Man was staged by San Francisco's New Conservatory Theater Center, September - November 2007.
A New Zealand production was produced by Auckland’s Silo Theatre in August 2009.
(http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2978/sso140410.jpg) (http://img690.imageshack.us/i/sso140410.jpg/)
Front cover of the 14 April 2010
edition of the Sydney Star Observer
featuring the Australian cast
of London's forthcoming
West End production of
Holding the Man
A Man-Size Success
As reported in the Sydney Star Observer
by Drew Sheldrick
Wednesday 14 April 2010
http://www.starobserver.com.au/entertainment/2010/04/14/a-man-size-success/24005
There are so many threads to the Holding the Man story that in four years since its premiere it seems to have amassed its own strange mythology.
From the moment it debuted at Griffin Theatre Company’s Stables Theatre in 2006, there’ve been unusual tales about Cate Blanchett and leaky air conditioners and unending serendipitous connections between the creative team and the original novel.
Most remarkable of all has been the seemingly unfaultable ongoing collaboration between playwright Tommy Murphy and director David Berthold.
Back in early 2006, I interviewed Murphy while he was adapting Timothy Conigrave’s memoir to the stage. Even then he had so much of a connection to the source material that it seemed portentous he was involved.
He and Conigrave had both worked extensively at NIDA and Griffin, and Murphy was even writing sections of the play at his local Potts Point coffee house, Hernandez — one of Conigrave’s favourite haunts.
The fateful convergence of artists involved in the show continues now that Holding the Man heads overseas to make its West End debut. Joining Berthold and Murphy to head up the London production is comedian Jane Turner, who was close to both Conigrave and his partner John Caleo during their time in Melbourne.
“We knew of Jane’s connection to the story very early on, while we were still working on the adaptation,” Berthold said.
“We were given a photograph of that school production of Romeo and Juliet that happens very early on in the book and play. To our astonishment, we noted one Jane Turner in the cast. The English producers first suggested her, without knowing any of this, and of course it seemed right.”
Given the work’s far-reaching connection to many in the Australian arts community, it was also no surprise that the show remains one of the most successful theatrical productions in Australia in recent years. But after four seasons and a national tour here, all eyes are on the reactions of the British.
“Speaking to the locals involved in the production, I’m extremely encouraged about the universality of Tim’s story,” Murphy said.
Berthold noted that despite it being a very Australian story, he and Murphy were very happy with the responses they saw to productions of the play in San Francisco and New Zealand.
“Both audiences received the story in much the same way as Australian audiences had. So I’m hoping that will be the case here in London.”
Guy Edmonds and Matt Zeremes will reprise their roles as Tim and John at Trafalgar Studios. They’ll be joined by Turner and new recruits Simon Burke, Oliver Farnworth and Anna Skellern.
On his decision to bring back Edmonds and Zeremes for the London production, rather than assembling a completely British cast, Berthold said it was hard to imagine the show without them.
“They were very young when they first did it — around 23 or 24. I had a feeling that a new maturity might be found now in their performances and so it has proven. They were always good, but now they completely inhabit, own their roles,” he said.
Of its various incarnations, Murphy said the very first opening night will remain his most intense experience. The guest list on the night included people who had worked closely with Conigrave in theatre, and his parents.
“I watched their [Tim’s parents] faces perhaps even more than the show,” he said. “At interval, I realised that the framed photos of Tim and John we had planned to be in the foyer had been left on my desk. I jogged home so their photos would be hanging when the audience departed. And, really, I think I just had to get away from the intensity.”
Both Berthold and Murphy have had great success outside of Holding the Man. Berthold now helms Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre Company and comes to London direct from finishing work on his critically-acclaimed Hamlet.
Meanwhile, Murphy teams up with Neil Armfield at Belvoir later this year to debut his new work, Gwen in Purgatory.
But if you wanted any more proof that Berthold and Murphy’s winning partnership was foretold in the stars, you only had to look at the success of their Sydney Theatre Company production of Murphy’s Saturn’s Return. Part of STC’s main stage season in 2009, artistic directors Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett quickly graduated the show from its experimental season in the Wharf2Loud season soon after its premiere.
Along with Holding the Man’s international success comes the unavoidable talk of a film adaptation. Murphy insists any such project would be a difficult undertaking.
“The key to the stage adaptation was that Tim had been a theatre maker; theatricality was embraced. That game provides nothing for a screen adaptation. I’d be confident that a love story such as this has the potential to make a beautiful film, but that all remains to be seen,” he said.
But as to whether the meaning of the text has changed for Berthold or Murphy over the years, it’s clear they’re in agreement.
“The central idea of the play has remained firm: this is a great love story, told through the language and play of theatre,” Berthold said.
“I have always trusted that Tim’s story transcends its era, it transcends sexuality. Holding the Man aims to place the love story centre stage. That is something that never shifts,” Murphy added.
Photographs from the original Australian production featuring Guy Edmonds as Timothy Conigrave and Matt Zeremes as John Caleo. They will also star in the West End production:
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/1600/holdingtheman1.jpg) (http://img199.imageshack.us/i/holdingtheman1.jpg/)
(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2181/holdingtheman660pc.jpg) (http://img27.imageshack.us/i/holdingtheman660pc.jpg/)
Photographs from the original Australian production featuring Guy Edmonds as Timothy Conigrave and Matt Zeremes as John Caleo. They will also star in the West End production:
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/1600/holdingtheman1.jpg) (http://img199.imageshack.us/i/holdingtheman1.jpg/)
(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2181/holdingtheman660pc.jpg) (http://img27.imageshack.us/i/holdingtheman660pc.jpg/)
Oh. My. GAWD!
Damn Kerry, what you trying to do? Get us all hot and bothered again? lol
;)