The Varnished Untruth

by Stephenson, Pamela

  I was inspired to seek theatre in every place I visited during my trip. In fact, that was my main focus. I was a terribly serious young performer. Everything had to be a ‘valuable experience’. Other young Australians who hit the hippy trail would be partying and getting laid – but ‘having a good time’ was way off my radar. I’ve just realized that’s why I love a party now; I completely missed all that fun when I was young.

  You are beginning to allow yourself to play . . . ?

  Yes, it’s only taken forty years. And I never feel quite right about it – there’s still someone inside me wagging her finger . . .

  And who exactly is that person?

  Ah. Yes. Mum gets everywhere, doesn’t she? Even Bangkok back then – the ultimate party town – did not summon a desire in me to cut loose and enjoy myself. Well, then again, I suppose it was always a male-focused place. But the smog-filled, overcrowded city certainly offered an eclectic range of performing events, from the highbrow, traditional Thai temple dancing, with its intricate finger gestures and eye movements, to the shocking, sleazy sex shows I witnessed in compounds on the city’s outskirts. I tried to view the latter without judgment, but I felt very conflicted about it. These were family businesses and the people performing live sex acts were related to each other. And these places had evolved largely due to the demand of westerners who would pay top dollar to attend. It seemed abusive to even watch. On the other hand, I reasoned, Thai society has a more relaxed attitude towards sexuality than many other cultures. I learned, for example, that Thai men could openly take their mistresses to official events – and, by law, they had to provide for them. But was this a good thing? Did it help the position of women generally in that society or not? What about the growing prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases? Even back then, I was intrigued by sexual mores. And in Bangkok, there was certainly a lot to think about.

  It doesn’t really surprise me that you were fascinated by it, that you wanted to study sexuality and eventually made it one of your professional fields. After all, the most significant moment of trauma in your life – being kicked out of home – occurred as a direct result of sexual behaviour, didn’t it? As a result of not just the behaviour itself, but the attitudes and beliefs and mores concerning what happened that were held by your parents – as products of their own upbringing and society . . . I suspect that even then you were bright enough to be able to see that it wasn’t just you; you were a product of your environment, and the prevailing zeitgeist strongly influenced those events . . . ?

  I guess . . . to some extent. And I suppose that’s actually why I always wanted to search for answers concerning all kinds of human behaviour, not just sexuality. And that’s one of the things that spurred me to travel. And to experience different kinds of relationships with different kinds of people. For example, after Bankok I flew to India where, in Delhi, I was sidetracked from my theatre studies by a brief and heady romance with a young American peace worker called Jerry.

  Well, that was just bound to happen, wasn’t it?

  Yep! With curly, long, blond hair and a beard, an electric blue, crushed velvet suit, strings of coloured beads around his neck and a guitar slung over his shoulder, he was a vision of seventies splendour, and I was unable to resist. I remember he had an amazingly confident, maverick approach, and I saw far more of his well-toned body than I did of the fascinating Indian capital. I felt guilty about Gareth, but reasoned that if something like this could happen so quickly and easily, I had been kidding myself to think I was still in love with him. Besides, he had already been married twice, and had two children. He wanted to settle down with me, but I just wasn’t ready. Perhaps this whole trip was really about finding a way to leave him.

  Anyway, I managed to wrench myself away from Jerry’s arms to catch my planned flight to Moscow, but I was so sexed-up and discombobulated, I boarded the late-night Aeroflot flight wearing a sleeveless summer dress – forgetting that the temperature in Russia would be minus thirty-two degrees. Twenty minutes before we landed, the flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder. ‘You have a coat?’ she asked. ‘Afraid not,’ I replied. In fact, I did have one, a black rabbit fur I was extremely proud of, but it was locked in my checked-in suitcase. I don’t remember how I managed to survive the intense cold of that winter arrival. The aircraft steps and tarmac were pure ice and I was wearing flip flops. The handle of my suitcase had frozen off, so I had to carry it under my arm as best I could. It was brutal.

  In those days it was very unusual for a single woman to travel alone anywhere behind the Iron Curtain, and I can’t imagine that anywhere could have been more uncomfortable than in Moscow. I was OK inside the hotel, though. I was staying at the art nouveau Hotel Metropol, which seemed like a set from Dr Zhivago. Sitting alone at supper in the dining room, men in military uniforms would send oranges to my table initially (highly prized in the Russian winter time), then turn up at my side, click their heels, bow, and then whirl me awkwardly around the dance floor. At first I was oblivious to the fact that I was being observed – rather, spied on – by the KGB. I was terribly naïve about the political climate at the time and I made some stupid mistakes, such as thinking it was OK to speak to ordinary citizens (at least I thought they were ordinary – who knows?). I found it very hard to get around the city with no signposts or maps and the lack of help from Intourist (I imagine that was a KGB-run ‘tourist bureau’). It was impossible to know what to do when people offered me black market exchange rates for my dollars. Eventually, even I could not help noticing that there were some glaring hypocrisies; when I attended the opera and saw important members of the KGB sitting in the best seats beside their wives who wore the latest Paris fashions, I understood that I had seen the reality behind George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Under the Russian Communist regime, all were equal, but some were more equal than others.

  I tried to see good theatre and naïvely thought Chekhov would be playing somewhere. But instead of sending me to Cherry Orchard, as I had requested, Intourist sold me tickets to a dreadfully cheesy Russian variety show. However, the KGB was not responsible for my worst moment of confusion. At one point I was searching for a taxi outside the hotel. Night had fallen and it was absolutely freezing. I was desperate for transport. Eventually, I spied a dark car with a sign above it, waiting on the corner. I ran thankfully towards it and hopped in, handing the driver a paper on which was written my desired address. But his reaction was a long way from what I expected. Instead of nodding accommodatingly, he stared at me furiously, with flared nostrils. ‘Nyet taxi!’ he snorted. It was a military police car.

  I took the Orient Express from Moscow to Budapest. I have since visited the twin cities of Buda and Pest and found them attractive and charming, but for some reason that was not how I found things the first time. For a start, I was getting a little low on funds and had to board in a decrepit building where a bomb had fallen during World War II. I swiftly moved on to Warsaw, where things were very different. I was enormously impressed by Poland and its citizens. In particular, I found the painters, cartoonists, film directors and actors were highly original and tremendously exciting. I met people I really liked and admired, and didn’t want to leave. I was lucky enough to meet Alex Brooking, an Australian diplomat stationed in Warsaw, who, I suppose, was detailed to keep an eye on me (I was amazed to discover Alex had grown up in Boronia Park). Knowledgeable and passionate about Polish film and art, Alex was extremely kind and informative. I gradually discovered the underground political theatre and found it absolutely thrilling.

  In those days, a strong anti-Russian sensibility abounded in Polish society, and this was reflected in the satire. There was an underground political cabaret company called the Pod Egida (‘Winking Eye’) to which I managed to find my way. In order to avoid discovery, Pod Egida performances took place at the last minute, in a forest on a Sunday afternoon or in someone’s house. I saw one of those clandestine performances in the basement of a small café. The backdrop was a satirical ren
dering of Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’, except that the faces of Jesus and His disciples were replaced with members of the Politburo, the Polish United Workers’ (Communist) Party that many in the audience had decided was too bureaucratic and essentially Russian in style. Someone I met there translated for me, and I my heart began to beat faster and faster at the thrill of seeing such a dark and biting comedy that truly meant something important to this audience. At one point a man leapt to his feet and shouted ‘Solidarność!’ Others followed suit, until the place was chaotic. The feeling in the audience was absolutely electric. I think it was at that moment I truly understood the thrilling, life-changing power a performance could wield under certain circumstances. I did not know it then, but it was the beginning of the anti-bureaucratic social movement ‘Solidarity’. Five years later, Lech Wałesa would form the first non-Communist-party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country, and eventually become President of Poland. But the power of that performance profoundly affected me. I had never before seen theatre that could stir people like that. It was the true beginning of my passion for satire.

  When I arrived at my next destination, Berlin, I immediately realized a long-term dream by crossing the Wall to East Berlin and attending a performance at Bertolt Brecht’s theatre, the Berliner Ensemble. This world-famous theatre was where The Threepenny Opera (which I’d performed in at the Sydney Opera House) had been conceived and first staged, along with other Brecht plays, such as The Caucasian Chalk Circle, in which I had also performed. After the show I waited to speak to the actors and asked if anyone could speak English. I was very lucky to meet the director, who invited me to observe rehearsals for the next production, Mother Courage and Her Children. I was lucky to receive this invitation. Here I was, in a theatre setting I had admired for years, watching some of the best works by satirical masters Brecht and Weill. These were the most outstanding, politically motivated performances you could find anywhere in the world. I was in heaven.

  But there was one problem: I could not get a visa to stay in East Germany, so I had to cross the Wall twice a day, every day. I remember my daily arrival at Friedrichstrasse checkpoint, with its stern, armed guards with their Alsatian dogs, and the endless waiting. Nevertheless, it was worth it. The director and cast were kind to me. I learned a great deal from watching their painstaking work, and they helped me to understand their methodology. I admired them tremendously and wanted to emulate them – especially their dedication, focus and attention to detail – in my future career.

  Now that I had found a branch of theatre that truly moved me, I sought it out wherever I went. When I arrived in Istanbul, a military coup was underway and the political events were reflected in the extraordinary street theatre I saw at that time. Again, it was vital and thrilling, and I wanted more. Ancient Greek theatre moved me, too, especially when it reflected issues that were also pertinent to modern Greek society – which happened to be remarkably often. However, in Milan, opera at the famous La Scala and the stylized theatre form Commedia dell’Arte, which was born in Italy in the sixteenth century, were now far less interesting to me than the edgy political cabarets to which I inevitably found my way. I also saw wonderful classical theatre and musical performances in Vienna and Zurich, but they paled beside the electric contemporary satire I’d previously seen. Even in Paris, I yawned at Feydeau’s farces, the lively nineteenth-century theatrical confections that were first mounted there. They were well done and interesting, but they were museum pieces.

  During my travels I had received a fantastic, broad theatre education. Most significantly, I had found where I belonged. I had acquired a true passion for contemporary political theatre, and had now seen the finest in the world. As I stepped on board a flight for London, I was, quite simply, ready for my next reincarnation.

  That’s all very well, but it occurs to me that you were travelling alone, a very pretty and apparently vulnerable young western woman – were you ever in danger?

  Yes, some young soldiers began to assault me when I was on an empty Hungarian train . . . I screamed and fought them off as best I could. It could have been a lot worse, but fortunately we were disturbed by an officer who ordered them off. That was a nasty experience . . . It was the arrogant way they obviously thought they could do whatever they liked with me. I remember thinking, ‘Pamela, you’re alone in a country where no one cares what happens to you; and no one back home even knows you’re here. You could just disappear without trace.’

  Travel can be so much safer now we have email . . . I mean, even up the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea they had cell phone towers. They are actually causing problems in the locality. One village chief complained that, very suddenly, the people in his village were getting porn images on their phones and being exposed to things they’d never seen or heard of before – culturally shocking. I’ll never forget the words he used – so interesting. He said, ‘Sex is becoming very popular now.’ I said, ‘What? Was it unpopular before?’ After all, I had just been inside a spirit house, climbing stairs that were carved like penises, and had watched tribes people shaking their genitals at each other in ritual dance. But the chief didn’t answer me.

  But, Pamela, can you see that your travels – especially those you undertook early in your life – served an important purpose?

  Hmmm. I suppose that seeing the world – and observing how people behave cross-culturally – was always enormously soothing for me. Not just an education, but more… I suppose I felt that it helped me to grasp not just how diverse human beings are, but more importantly that the weird, unaccepted, ‘alien’ person I always felt myself to be – so different from everyone else in my family – wasn’t really so strange in the context of the wider world, with its myriad societies full of strikingly different individuals. And, at the same time, I witnessed and felt the important similarities, the basic things that make us human… Yes, travel was – and still is – vitally important to me.

  But there’s more. In your family of origin, feeling like an unappreciated, misunderstood outsider was not only painful, it was an unbearable mystery. Travel seems to reaffirm your rightful place in the family – the wider human family. And somehow, the more different the people and their culture, the stronger your relief and delight when they are friendly and accepting. You actually seek this – and danger – as a means of gaining mastery over your early traumas. Paradoxically, for you, intrepid travel – even when highly precarious – was, and continues to be, a powerful way for you to feel safe.

  Chapter Seven

  FOB

  It occurs to me, Pamela, that you deliberately search for a lifestyle that is the antithesis of what most people want. For example, you are comfortably off – earn your own living and are married to a wellknown man with a flourishing career – yet you appear to eschew luxury in favour of, say, a tree house in Papua New Guinea.

  Yeah, well, I know I am lucky to be able to have that choice. But, for example, staying on a yacht in Cannes harbour during the Festival in May 1978, and hanging out with stars like Marcello Mastroianni, Harvey Keitel, John Hurt, Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese (it was the year The Last Waltz was released), might seem like it was a glamorous and desirable experience, but it affected me like a camper who’s unwittingly pitched her tent on an ant hill. After just a few days of such a heady lifestyle, I glanced around at my fellow passengers – happily sipping champagne over brunch – and put some dry clothes in a plastic bag on my back and slipped off the boat into the water. A couple of miles away was the island of Ile Saint-Honorat on which sat a monastery. I have no idea what drew me to it, but it appeared in the distance as a beacon of peace and clarity.

  I was exhausted after my long swim. I lay on the rocky beach for a bit, then, once the sun had warmed and dried me, I dressed and began to walk along a path lined with vineyards to an ancient stone building with a bell tower. A couple of monks were working in the fields but they ignored me. Perhaps they’d taken a vow of silence. I climbed the tower and sat there,
high in the sun, a contemporary Quasimodo contemplating my future. The day before, I had met the Polish film director Jerzy Skolimowski, who that year took the Grand Prix for The Shout (shared with Marco Ferreri for Ciao Maschio). I was hugely taken by Jerzy, having long admired his screenplay for Roman Polanski’s film Knife in Water, which I thought was psychologically profound, and spent a long evening with him. To be honest, I believe he actually helped me out of a gutter on the Croisette, but I’m not entirely sure how I got there in the first place. Perhaps it was the merlot.

  I fully expected him to try to sleep with me but he didn’t. Instead, he spoke to me respectfully about my creative core. This was a first. ‘Unless you have honesty and authenticity in your own life,’ he said, ‘you will not have it in your art.’ I thought long and hard about that. In trying so hard to fit in with the high style and heady glamour of Cannes, I had lost sight of who I really was. ‘This isn’t me,’ I told myself from my perch on the tower. ‘I’m behaving like a C-movie starlet, when I’m really an experienced, serious actor. Look at all the work I’ve done.’ There and then, I took a vow to protect my creative talent the best way I could.

  As I sat lecturing myself high in the stone clock tower of Ile SaintHonorat, what lay ahead of me in just a few months – being cast in a highly popular BBC2 topical comedy show – was pretty unimaginable. Right now, I was a relatively unknown Australian actress who could not get a break. All the work I had done in Australia seemed to mean nothing. In this new, bigger pond I had to start all over again and try to prove my worth. It was terribly daunting. Evening began to fall and the swallows began to circle. I had been so transfixed by my reverie I had failed to consider that dusk might not be the best time to start that long swim back to the boat. Fortunately, two kind friends arrived to save me, with a couple of sea scooters.