Summer and Autumn are in love, but there’s a problem in their love nest. While Summer plans a spectacular skating party, Autumn roams the house, spanner in hand, looking for a drip she can’t see. With cracks emerging in their relationship, puddles appear on the floor and tough questions need to be asked.
A modern fairytale that begins with salsa, pirouettes into the clouds, and ends on a snow-capped mountain, Skating in the Clouds is an adventurous new work by playwright Clare Mendes.
A story Mendes felt compelled to write because, like many people, she is disillusioned with the world she lives in
“There is so much I would like to change but cannot, ” says Mendes. “My need to fix things inspired me to create the character of Autumn (played by Rebecca Morton), who spends her days roaming the house with a spanner in hand, trying to fix a leak she can’t see. But I also have a need to escape reality, which inspired the character of the idealistic, fantasy-driven Summer (Katrina Mathers). So, the two sides of me, explored through two conflicting characters.”
Skating in the Clouds is a magic-realist romp that celebrates the intricacies of female love and the remarkability of 50+ women. In fact, says Mendes, two very important themes are perception and love.
“When Summer and Autumn meet at a salsa hall, they share their very different perceptions of the world. Autumn points to the many things that need fixing – “Disease, hunger, poverty” – to which Summer enthusiastically responds: “Flowers, birds, sunshine. Some days I can’t believe how beautiful the world is. And if there’s something that isn’t beautiful – well, you just block it out.”
So, two ways of looking at the same planet. Another important theme explored in Skating in the Clouds is love, and whether we can truly love someone whose world views are sharply at odds with our own. In the end, Summer and Autumn’s fundamental differences will either make or break their relationship.
What I want to say with Skating in the Clouds is: I think it’s okay to be the realistic problem-solver, the daydreaming denier, or a mix of these. Be whatever you need to be to make sense of what you see. But it’s the woman with the spanner who will bring about lasting change, and I think this is why Autumn seldom puts hers down – as her creator, I just don’t let her.”
Mendes first had the idea for the play back in 2022.
“I love rivers and waterfalls, and after I’ve been to one, I will often play back in my memory the sound of the water crashing. So, in its first draft the play was called ‘The Distant Waterfall’ – but once Summer arrived in my head, swinging a pair of ice skates, the story shifted to a lake covered in ice. We don’t have many of these in Australia, hence Summer’s dream that she is Skating in the Clouds. I wrote the first draft, then received a grant from the Malcolm Robertson Foundation to write a few more, which I workshopped with my dramaturg and actors. I continued taking feedback on the script and making changes right through to the start of rehearsals in August this year, and then a few rehearsals beyond this. So, it’s taken two years and around ten drafts.”
Skating in the Clouds is set in St Kilda and references some local landmarks, e.g. The Espy and Monarch Cakes. Featuring an all-female team, the work is also supported by a wonderful Latin soundtrack inspired by Mendes’ experiences of working and living in South America.
A work of personal significance for Mendes, who says that her biggest challenge was finding ways to write the play she wanted to write, with the messages she wanted to impart, without being didactic. “I love to challenge audiences with my writing – to inspire them to ask big questions, to think deeply and to consider new perspectives – but I equally love to make audiences laugh,” she says. “Then there is the entertainment factor – you have invited people to come and see your show, so what will you Show them? Theatrical spectacle is important for me, as both a playwright and a patron, and probably one of the most exciting moments of this play’s creation was looking around the table at the Table Read and feeling very confident that I had engaged a team of designers – Bianca Pardo, Sharyn Brand, Natalia Velasco Moreno – who would make this play look, sound and feel like I wanted it to. A spectacle.”
Skating in the Clouds is the first in a trilogy of adventurous, magic-realist plays by Mendes with each to be created and performed by an all-female cast and crew. She has also just finished the second play called Sin Hombres (“Without Men” in Spanish).
Making opportunities is something Mendes wants to do as a playwright.
“I run Melbourne Writers’ Theatre, whose mission is to support writers and artists and create pathways for them, and I take this ethos into my own projects.
To this I add my firm desire, for my own work, to provide opportunities to female, female-identifying and non-binary artists. So yes, Skating in the Clouds will be performed by four female actors – Katrina Mathers, Rebecca Morton, Shamita Sivabalan and El Kiley – but we also have an all-female crew of 10, led by director Emily Farrell and assistant director Ellie Nielsen.
It’s worth noting that 50% of this cast and crew is aged 50+, which is another thing I want to do: I want to provide opportunities for mature-aged women to shine and keep on shining. We have raised children, dogs and money for causes, kept our communities running, and squeezed in our art around this. It’s time for some We-time.
Skating in the Clouds is the first play in a series of three, and each of them will feature an all-female cast and crew. I finished writing the second play on 2nd August and this one has a cast of five women – I can’t wait to see who plays Zahra.”
Mendes has an extensive list of writing credits to her name including novels; Drift Street, The Curtain Raiser, A Race Across Burning Soil (HarperCollins), and The Unvoiced Consonant (Little Owl Press) and previous plays; The Agreement, Trash Goes Down The River, and A Flower for Moses. As a writer she loves to ask Why? or What if … ? and then brainstorm the answers.
“I began my working life as an advertising copywriter and I still have that belief that every product can be sold with the right words, and every creative idea realised with the perfect words. And explored from endless angles – like a Rubik’s cube that changes patterns with every twist – and that there are numerous ways to tell a story. I am passionate about telling good stories, important stories, compelling stories that draw an audience into the world of the characters and keep them there. I love magic realism, and the suspension of disbelief that comes with this. I also find it a beautiful vehicle for talking about subjects that are not. I like to explore injustice in my plays, and create a world in which the underdogs, the oppressed, the disempowered have a chance to rise up. This has never changed, and I have never written a play that did not start with a feeling of outrage, sorrow or disbelief and a desire to make things right.”
Mendes’ favourite characters are those who end up surprising her. “You think you know them, because you built them from the ground up, but then on p45 they do something you really weren’t expecting. They usually have a reason – though sometimes having no reason is even more intriguing.”
Interestingly, Mendes has Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (named for a famous children’s storybook with the understanding that its author, Lewis Carroll, also had this little-known condition – explaining so very much about the story! ) this rare condition makes things look or feel larger or smaller than they actually are. This has influenced the design of the work and, for Mendes, is a constant presence in her creative life.
“Ah, Alice in Wonderland … Pelopsia is what I most often experience. Someone or something that is far away will sudden be very close, and very large. I’m not sure how other playwrights see a stage in their heads, but my stages often have things out of proportion. In Skating in the Clouds, Summer writes with an oversized quill on a very large scroll. Sometimes I also experience distorted sound, so the softest noise will be loud and powerful in my head. I guess that’s Autumn, who hears a constant drip drip drip that Summer can’t hear. The audience doesn’t have to interpret or make sense of these visual and aural elements – they’re just what I saw, and heard, as I was writing.”
Mendes wants audiences to leave the play with questions – about the ending (what does it mean?), about the two conflicting worldviews presented in the play (is there value in both?) and about elements of the play that struck a chord with them. “I will be very happy if I come out into the foyer at the end of a performance and hear a patron say, “Sometimes I feel like Summer,” or “I once did what Autumn did,” because this will mean that the play has been relevant for them – and Summer and Autumn say and do things that I really want audiences to reflect on.”
She would also like people who come to see Skating in the Clouds to have a conversation about what they saw. “It will be a big play, with intelligent direction, memorable performances and thoughtful design, and we would like to think that our audiences were moved by all of these elements and had a very enjoyable evening of theatre.”
This premiere season is rich in romance, arguments, dreaming – and skating! Running at Melbourne’s iconic Theatre Works, this final season at the venue in 2024 is not to be missed.
Says Mendes, ” I think this is an unusual play to be staging in the lead-up to the festive season. At this time of year other theatres are presenting light-hearted shows that feature naughty elves and recalcitrant reindeers but Skating in the Clouds is a dramatic story about love and dreams, denial and consequences. Having said that, Katrina and Rebecca are very funny together and Shamita and El will impress you with their roller-skating ability. There’s also salsa, music and a Superb Fairywren called Frida Kahlo …
Finally, Skating in the Clouds is on at Theatre Works – it’s the final show for 2024. We all know how nice it is to stand out in that front courtyard on a warm December night, bubbles in hand as the stars twinkle above. We would love to see you there.”
December 4 – 14
Bookings: www.theatreworks.org.au/2024/skating-in-the-clouds
