I was commissioned to write a play about finance. Then I met Cookie, the psychic
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Version 0 of 1. All my life I had worried that I couldn’t have the two things I really desire: to be a writer and to find love. In early 2011 I met a psychic named Cookie in New York City who told me that a curse was keeping me from having it all and all I had to do was pay a large sum of money and she would get rid of the curse for me. I thought it seemed like a good idea. However, I was thwarted from paying her because I didn’t have any cash on me and the Duane Reade Pharmacy wouldn’t let me buy the American Express Gift Cards she requested. I returned to Australia still cursed and went back to my life as a playwright. But this wasn’t the end of it. Soon after getting back to Australia my brother Mike called me. He’s a passionate economist. He said, “I was thinking you should write a play about finance. It’s fascinating stuff.” Related: Melbourne film festival: you'll laugh, you'll cry with top 10 things to see and do I told him, “But I don’t know anything about finance.” He said, “You never start off knowing about anything you write. Until you live it. Come to Sydney and I’ll take you to some meetings.” My brother is a hard person to say no to. I flew to Sydney and started going to meetings with him acting as though I were a potential investor. An investor who was wearing sneakers, a baggy skirt and carrying a green Woolworth’s bag as a handbag. No one seemed that bothered. At night we would go to The Establishment (a hang out for stockbrokers) and Mike would approach random financial types and say, “My sister’s writing a play, can you talk to us about your life?” Most of them would. This was just after the financial crisis and a lot of the guys we talked to wanted to leave finance and become truffle farmers. By mid 2011 my brother and I were ready to go to the mecca of finance – New York City. By then I had a commission from the Belvoir Street Theatre to write the play, which was to be called “Fortune”. I used my commission money to finance my trip. I was heartbroken at the time, because my boyfriend and I had just broken up. I had suspicions that it was because I hadn’t had the curse removed from the psychic. But anyway, it was a good time to leave town. In New York my brother and I hung out in a lot of bars in Wall Street. Though it was fascinating, I didn’t feel enough of a personal connection with the finance world to start writing about it yet. I was interested in the people we were meeting and in how hungry the shops in New York felt. I’ve never been good at saying no if someone does a hard sell on me and now the second I walked into a shop, the hard sell began. I was spending so much money that it felt like bleeding. I’ve always loved New York, but this time I noticed that the streets in Manhattan had all taken on a similar quality. They all had a Duane Reade Pharmacy on every corner. And every block had a shop front psychic. It felt like capitalism meeting mysticism. And I wondered if in every single one of them (Duane Reades and psychics) there was the answer to all my dreams. My brother stayed for a week and then had to go back to Australia. I missed him, but was glad I no longer had to worry about him getting killed at illegal all-night poker games. On my own, I wandered the winter New York streets. It wasn’t long before I found my way back into Cookie’s. She said she could still cure my curse, but unfortunately, now the price had doubled. I spent a lot of time and a lot of money in there. Related: I'm an artist and I've received grants. Want to know what I do with all that money? | Zoe Coombs Marr By the time I got back to Australia I was curse-free and broke. My boyfriend and I got back together. The play was due. I still didn’t know what to write. And then it occurred to me (the day before it was due) that I had to put the psychic in it with the finance guys. I went to Sydney and did some workshops on the play, but spent most of the time speaking as Cookie and relaying my stories of her. By the end of the workshop, the artistic director had decided he didn’t want to program Fortune. But he said he wanted to program me talking about my own life and being myself and the psychics. My brother was disappointed. But despite my never having performed much, I had an amazing time doing the show. I loved communicating directly with audiences and becoming my different characters on stage. Fortune still hasn’t been performed, but Stories I Want to Tell You in Person (which is literally what it is) has had many seasons and was commissioned by the ABC to be made for screen. Stories I Want to Tell You is showing in the Melbourne International Film Festival and on ABC on 20 and 27 August. |