All My Friends Were There
The Guerrilla Museum
7 October
Theatre Works
to 11 October
www.festival.melbourne
Everyone I know to who experienced The Guerrilla Museum's two-person-audience show Funeral still talks about it. All My Friends Were There is about another inevitability in most lives – birthdays. And enough people come to every show to make a party.
Literally. We made a flippin' party!
No one knows who's party it's going to be until the show starts. Audiences are sent questionnaires about their birthday memories and someone, and their memories, are chosen for the day's party.
Today we celebrated Fleur's birthday. I'm not allowed to share the photos because The Guerilla Museum are all about having personal experiences. The guerillas want us to be in the moment and create memories – knowing that they change and are never be exactly like what happened.
I can say there was cake, streamers, vegan snags, booze, pass the parcel and surprsies. But no one gets to enjoy all of it and – like all birthdays – there are moments of "I want to do THAT".
The audience are split into groups and then smaller groups who visit spaces in and around Theatre Works. Each mini experience is about creating the final party, but it's more about evoking personal birthday memories. Knowing the birthday girl actually worked against the experience.
And while the final party is like mainlining glitter, we're still left knowing little about the person we're celebrating.
The experience that will stay with me is filling in the questionnaire, choosing five photos and trying to remember 49 birthdays.
The first question is about our fifth birthday.
I don't remember my fifth birthday. But I remember my grandma letting me choose two presents from the toy shop. I chose a gold-coloured teddy bear – I called him, definitely a him, Golden – and a plastic doll that came in her own matching bag. Gran told me not to take her to school the next day because I'd lose her. I remember being angry that she'd think that; I loved that new doll and wouldn't lose her. I lost her. I don't remember what she looked like, but I realised why I never say "Don't lose ..." to a child; I say "Be careful" or "Keep ... safe".
I remember my fourth birthday because I have a photo of it. I had a cake with pink icing and Yogi Bear chocolates around the side. I remember the cake vividly and the photo (below) proves how wrong memories can be. I had an ice cream cake. And I look pretty happy about it. Maybe the pink cake was from my forgotten fifth?
There was my 25th party in an activist share house where I drunkenly remember asking my brother how he lost his virginity but was too drunk to remember his answer.
There was the unnecessary aging crisis of turning 30. The only person who seemed to get that I wasn't keen on celebrating was a woman I worked with. She was about to turn 40 and facing IVF. I remember thinking how I'd have my life together by 40 and that ten years is such a long time.
I remembered 38 where I looked at my father's funeral memorial card from ten years earlier. This was the first time I'd looked at the date of his death (he took his own life) and saw that it wasn't the day before my birthday. No one ever checked that I knew; knowing made a difference.
I avoided 40 – turns out I didn't have my life together and ten years is a very short time – and had a last-minute pub lunch. My favourite 40-something birthday was feeding giraffes at Werribbee Zoo, but the best party was the Party For Pets where friends gave a donation to Lort Smith Animal Hospital. We wore animal masks and looked like we were at a really cheap middle-aged swingers party.
I suspect that I'll also avoid 50, but I am going to Sri Lanka a few weeks before my birthday and I want to go on a leopard safari that costs more than the airfare so I might accept presents this one year. #AllIWantForMyBirthdayIsALeopardSafari
