Recipient of 11 Fringe Festival Awards, Patrick Livesey returns to the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2024 with his urgent and confronting new solo work, I hope this means something.
I hope this means something is a story of isolation, sacrifice, and the climate crisis and a story, which Livesey believes, has always been rumbling around somewhere in the back of his brain.
“Almost everything I write weaves in the climate crisis in some way because funnily enough I can’t seem to escape it. Though we do try,” says Livesey. “But the real seeds were sewn when I was living in New York City last year and the Canadian wildfires blanketed the city in orange smoke and smog for about a week. Having lived through the Summer 2019/20 bushfires it was dare I say a slightly triggering, apocalyptic nightmare.
It then became about figuring out what kind of story I wanted to tell which leads me to your third question which is a new sort of climate story! I felt so many of my friends had given up hope and had fallen into a state of kind of numb despair about it all. And that’s not very good. So, I wondered whether there was a different way of looking at the climate that took into account everyone’s sort of fatigue with it all. Cause it’s a long road ahead and whilst it’s understandable that people need a little power nap from it all we’d all better refuel, hydrate and get stuck back in!”
Livesey is not one to shy away from research and a play about an environmental activist who sets themself on fire has a high bar when it comes to research.
“I’d had experience conducting interviews with my play, Naomi and so for I hope this means something I spoke to a whole bunch of climate scientists, first nations leaders, activists and community organisers,” says Livesey. “The range of perspectives was really fascinating.
Maybe the thing that shocked me most was the public health measures put in place to limit what is communicated to the public. Basically, if you’re reading an article that says such-and-such climate-related thing is looking not very good, you can almost guarantee that it is actually looking really, really, really not good.
Then what surprised me has probably been just how much energy there is out there, on so many different fronts, to come up with solutions and that all these solutions lead back to you and me and getting to know our neighbours’ better.
In all seriousness though the summary of my research has informed me that 1) it do be bad and that’s not going to change and 2) we still have options and for folks like us those involve reconnecting with community in a whole new way. As one scientist who works with Pacific Island nations told me – “connected communities are resilient communities.” So, get to know your neighbour’s people!”
Livesey’s hope is that people walk away from the show still trying to piece bits of the story together because that means they’re invested and the show left them with more questions than answers. They hope those questions lead people to having practical conversations about the future of the area of earth they inhabit and how they can best prepare for that future.
“The climate is going to affect us all differently based on where we live and it really needs to be our responsibility to educate ourselves about what that means for us,” they say. “I would love it if people walked away thinking about the ways in which they may be isolating themselves from potential community but baby steps! Let’s just get people in the door first.
After graduating from the VCA in 2017, Livesey has a Green Room Award nomination, has a NZ Tour Ready Award, The Frank Ford Award, and the Adelaide Critics Circle Award as well receiving multiple four- and five-star reviews for previous works. They say that at this stage in their life they are drawn to stories that are confronting something within themselves that they’d rather avoid. In the past that’s been gender and sexuality, or mental health and grief. With this story they wanted to ask themselves why they’re so scared of the future and why they feel so powerless. “I’ve been through some periods of feeling quite phenomenally hopeless about it all and I thought, ‘hmm, this is becoming quite tricky to manage. What’s really going on here?’ Stay tuned to find out!
I think the characters grow from that fear, usually. I’m deeply inspired by my strange, wonderful and very, very large family so there’s almost always echoes of a sibling, parent or grandparent somewhere in the mix. Also, wigs. I love characters that wear great wigs.”
This will also be Livesey’s first Melbourne Fringe Festival premiere season since 2019 and also their first ever commission – . I hope this means something is the inaugural recipient of the Melbourne Fringe Climate Crisis Commission, supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation.
For Livesey anything is a good fringe fit. “But this show in particular,” says Livesey “ is an excellent fringe fit because it’s the result of a big gamble on Melbourne Fringe’s behalf to entrust me with this first ever Climate Crisis Commission. I only started work on it in April and what’s more Fringe than a production thrown together (aka lovingly and tenderly assembled) in just 7 months?”
Livesey says whether this work has another life is entirely dependent on fate, the universe, ticket sales and their desire to do so post-Fringe. But theoretically, yes. they would love to see he show evolve. “I’m really, really excited about how the work is unfolding and I want to share that with as many people as possible.”
Livesey describes Fringe as truly their happy place. “I’ve been performing at Fringe festivals since I was an honest-to-God child and the excitement of sharing work, of seeing friends’ work, of discovering new work! It’s all too much! Plus, nothing could be better than getting a group of exhausted-yet-over-excited artists in one room and giving them great music and seeing what happens and the Fringe Club has that and more. I’m telling you people, it’s the place to be. Other than Chapel Off Chapel where I’m performing. That’s truly the place to be. But after that, Fringe Club.”
I hope this means something ventures beyond the science of the climate crisis to uncover a fragile mind squarely undone by it. A story of one person becoming increasingly radicalised by the world around them, this powerful world premiere season explores a world where the boundaries between sane and insane, fact and fiction, disintegrate.
Says Livesey, “I would say to audiences that this work is bringing together me and some of my best Judy’s like Benjamin Nichol (director) and M’ck McKeague (set and costumes design) for the first time since our drama school days. We all have very different approaches and sensibilities and if I were you, I’d want to see what the hell happens there.
I would then lean in and get really serious for a second and say that none of us will be able to escape what is coming. Don’t let yourself fall into despair or narratives of demise. Our capacity to imagine is our greatest strength in this moment and if you want to see what a group of kick-ass, talented and hard-working artists have imagined for the future then come along to I hope this means something.”
October 2 – 13
https://melbournefringe.com.au/event/i-hope-this-means-something/
