Treading softly…in Verona and Dublin
Jessica Bellamy, writer of LITTLE LOVE/BAT EYES, has been wandering Europe since BAT EYES screened at the Venice Film Festival, as a finalist in YouTube’s Your Film Festival. Here, she writes of Verona, and her visit to Dublin, where BAT EYES all began, when Jessica fell in love with Yeats. You can read about Jessica’s Venice trip, here.
VERONA
Dear Verona
You are a really weird place. “You are trippy”, is something I would say, if I could pull that off.
You are heaps, heaps, heaps of amazing old monuments, but you are also all the shops, and all the tourists. And loud cars that don’t sound like the Venice I have been spoilt by. And amazing old bricks right next to high street shops like Zara and Sephora.
And in your Arena, your historic Arena, you host things like Opera on Ice.
And the Prima Donna has her leg over her head.
And that’s not the sort of opera I have come to recognise.
But perhaps you do things differently here.
And Verona, I would like to know the history of your Arena, but the only way to find it out is to put 1 euro into an old payphone covered in gum and graffiti.
And I do not want that thing near my mouth.
So I guess your history could be anything; and besides, I don’t have time to work out your history because I bought a Verona Card for 15 euro, and this Verona Card gives me admission into every single historical attraction of Verona – like the old Arena, and San Zeno Church, and Castellvecchio Museum, and also random attractions like The Museum of Africa, and The History of Radio Exhibit. And because I am an obsessive person, Verona, I need to see how many of these things I can tick off my list before I leave your weird touristy beautiful streets.
The most famous of your attractions is obviously Casa Guiletta, with a beautiful old balcony where couples are allowed contrived Romance Time, and a statue of Juliet, whose right breast must be groped for good luck. There’s also a tunnel of graffiti upon entering the little courtyard, filled with messages of love and longing in brightly coloured scrawls.
My favourite part of Casa Guiletta was a gate packed with thousands of locks, a rainbow of them, each representing a love affair either real or desired. I watched as a teenage boy got a lock that he had decorated with permanent marker and clicked it onto the gate, and then he closed his eyes and quietly, said some prayer of want or of gratitude, and it was very beautiful to watch.
I thought about telling him the URL for BAT EYES and maybe offering him an optometry check, but I didn’t want to interrupt his reverie.
I liked your historic churches, Verona, and recommend these to people, Verona Card or not. They were quite stunning, and a great integration of art and devotion.
But my favourite part of your many jewels, Verona, was your Roman Theatre. This was an old, old theatre now being used for live music at nighttimes and an upcoming Festival de Shakespearino. Most fascinating in this Roman Theatre was the way that it was part-theatre and part-chapel, and also part-graveyard. Theatre was inextricably linked to the rituals of life and death. Theatre was more than just entertainment and respite – it was the blood that flowed through citizens’ veins.
Thanks Verona for these sights and these lessons.
You were a worthwhile type of exhausting.
DUBLIN
BAT EYES screened at the Venice Film Festival in the final of YouTube’s Your Film Festival in September 2012. Writer Jessica Bellamy was in Venice, Verona and Dublin with the support of atyp’s Fresh Ink program, made possible through the generous support of the Graeme Wood Foundation.
VERONA
Dear Verona
You are a really weird place. “You are trippy”, is something I would say, if I could pull that off.
You are heaps, heaps, heaps of amazing old monuments, but you are also all the shops, and all the tourists. And loud cars that don’t sound like the Venice I have been spoilt by. And amazing old bricks right next to high street shops like Zara and Sephora.
And in your Arena, your historic Arena, you host things like Opera on Ice.
And the Prima Donna has her leg over her head.
And that’s not the sort of opera I have come to recognise.
But perhaps you do things differently here.
And Verona, I would like to know the history of your Arena, but the only way to find it out is to put 1 euro into an old payphone covered in gum and graffiti.
And I do not want that thing near my mouth.
So I guess your history could be anything; and besides, I don’t have time to work out your history because I bought a Verona Card for 15 euro, and this Verona Card gives me admission into every single historical attraction of Verona – like the old Arena, and San Zeno Church, and Castellvecchio Museum, and also random attractions like The Museum of Africa, and The History of Radio Exhibit. And because I am an obsessive person, Verona, I need to see how many of these things I can tick off my list before I leave your weird touristy beautiful streets.
The most famous of your attractions is obviously Casa Guiletta, with a beautiful old balcony where couples are allowed contrived Romance Time, and a statue of Juliet, whose right breast must be groped for good luck. There’s also a tunnel of graffiti upon entering the little courtyard, filled with messages of love and longing in brightly coloured scrawls.
My favourite part of Casa Guiletta was a gate packed with thousands of locks, a rainbow of them, each representing a love affair either real or desired. I watched as a teenage boy got a lock that he had decorated with permanent marker and clicked it onto the gate, and then he closed his eyes and quietly, said some prayer of want or of gratitude, and it was very beautiful to watch.
I thought about telling him the URL for BAT EYES and maybe offering him an optometry check, but I didn’t want to interrupt his reverie. I liked your historic churches, Verona, and recommend these to people, Verona Card or not. They were quite stunning, and a great integration of art and devotion.
But my favourite part of your many jewels, Verona, was your Roman Theatre. This was an old, old theatre now being used for live music at nighttimes and an upcoming Festival de Shakespearino. Most fascinating in this Roman Theatre was the way that it was part-theatre and part-chapel, and also part-graveyard. Theatre was inextricably linked to the rituals of life and death. Theatre was more than just entertainment and respite – it was the blood that flowed through citizens’ veins.
Thanks Verona for these sights and these lessons.
You were a worthwhile type of exhausting.
DUBLIN
So, Venice was all wrapped up.
Your Film Festival was over, creative teams were returning back to their home countries, and it was time for me to enter the next phase of this exciting Eurotrip: my much adored city of Dublin.
This was an incredibly inspiring way to end my trip in Europe – back to the source material, taking in the water! I feel inspired, energised, and ready for my upcoming writing projects.
Dublin, for me, is where this whole adventure started, as it is where I first tapped into my great love for the writing of W.B. Yeats. After my first trip to Ireland, I began to research his work and his context for writing, and after my second trip to Ireland, I realised that I wanted to be a writer myself.
This third trip to Dublin was exciting because there was no particular prerogative – just to top up the inspiration bank, to see which aspects of Irish culture and history might stick out this time, and perhaps would inspire my future work.
This third trip to Dublin was exciting because there was no particular prerogative – just to top up the inspiration bank, to see which aspects of Irish culture and history might stick out this time, and perhaps would inspire my future work. As it was, Dublin was in prime Gorgeous Summer mode, and about to start the Absolut Theatre Festival and Fringe Festival. I managed to catch 3 different shows within 2 days in town:
First, the sumptuous Elevator, an exploration of privilege and decadence through glam musical, by inspiring collective THISISPOPBABY.
Second, the exhilarating Farm, a verbatim theatre piece involving real farm animals, employing song, dance, parody, and a promenade performance style to explore our relationship to animals and land.
Third, and most significant for me, a play that came from Yeats’s own tenure as artistic director of the Abbey Theatre (Ireland’s national theatre), The Plough and the Stars. This play was written by Sean O’Casey, a key writer to follow up on the achievements of the first writers of the Celtic Twilight (Yeats, Augusta Gregory, JM Synge). O’Casey prided himself on realistically capturing an authentic Dublin voice, hiding underground in venues throughout the city to spy on how everyday people talked to one another. The play was directed by THISISPOPBABY’s Wayne Jordan, who breathed vibrancy into this 90 year old play without changing any of the text or context. With gorgeous production details, including a very adaptable set and atmospheric scoring, the play resonated emotionally with many people. Especially me. Who cried for the entire last 45 minutes. 
My favourite thing about Dublin is how its history – both literary and general – is stamped all over its architecture and public spaces. Dublin is a city with such a rich past, including the 1916 Easter Rising for Home Rule (which was the topic of The Plough and the Stars) and these are commemmorated simply by walking down the main road (O’Connell St), punctuated with statues of famous Dubliners from history. The pillars in front of the General Post Office still bear bullet holes from the Easter Rising. History lives.
My favourite thing about Dublin is how its history – both literary and general – is stamped all over its architecture and public spaces. Dublin is a city with such a rich past, including the 1916 Easter Rising for Home Rule (which was the topic of The Plough and the Stars) and these are commemmorated simply by walking down the main road (O’Connell St), punctuated with statues of famous Dubliners from history. The pillars in front of the General Post Office still bear bullet holes from the Easter Rising. History lives. Also notable is the role of artists in this geography – it was a joy to find O’Casey Bridge after seeing an O’Casey play. Just down the road from it was Beckett Bridge! Maybe one day there will be a Bellamy Bridge, holding together half a muddy river inbetween Mullumbimby and Ocean Shores.
I ended the trip by visiting the permanent W.B. Yeats exhibition at the National Library of Ireland. I have been to this exhibit on every trip to Dublin, yet it still remains fascinating. The highlight is always a curved ‘listening cube’ at the mouth of the exhibit, where you can sit down and listen to writers, actors or singers (including Sinead O’Connor!) read out key Yeats poems set to visual accompaniments. I probably spend an hour in that cube every time I visit, and it really doesn’t get boring.
I ended the trip by visiting the permanent W.B. Yeats exhibition at the National Library of Ireland. I have been to this exhibit on every trip to Dublin, yet it still remains fascinating. The highlight is always a curved ‘listening cube’ at the mouth of the exhibit, where you can sit down and listen to writers, actors or singers (including Sinead O’Connor!) read out key Yeats poems set to visual accompaniments. I probably spend an hour in that cube every time I visit, and it really doesn’t get boring. This was an incredibly inspiring way to end my trip in Europe – back to the source material, taking in the water! I feel inspired, energised, and ready for my upcoming writing projects. It has been such a blessing to take this trip and see where one small film can take you, if it connects with enough people and inspires them.
Thank you so much to atyp, Fresh Ink Manager Dan Prichard, BAT EYES director Damien Power and producer Bec Cubitt for this entire adventure.
I still can’t quite believe it happened!
I still can’t quite believe it happened!
JESSICA BELLAMY Jessica Bellamy is a Sydney-based playwright. She holds a Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art in Playwriting (NIDA). In 2011 she presented Celebrity Healing at Canberra’s You Are Here Festival and Griffin Theatre’s Griffringe, had an excerpt of Endless Light and Endless Sound shown at the National Play Festival, and wrote A Fourth of Nature, a play for 18 young performers, for the ACT Department of Education’s School Spectacular. Jessica’s play Sprout won her the 2011 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award, while Little Love, her monologue for The Voices Project 2011: Tell It Like It Isn’t, was adapted by Jessica and director Damien Power for the film Bat Eyes as part of The Voices Project. Read an interview with Jessica about her work, here. |
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