The new Stablemates play makes ordinariness extraordinary, says director Eamon Flack.

The latest play in Griffin’s 2008 Stablemates season is Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Arabian Night, an erotic urban fantasy inspired by his experiences working as a journalist in Istanbul.

Part fairy tale, part noir thriller, it tells the story of five people whose lives become entwined on a hot summer night when their building’s water supply is cut off. It shakes out the wishful fantasies that run through our workaday heads and unfurls them into outlandish stories of love. The ordinary becomes extraordinary.

“I love that it’s modern love story,” director Eamon Flack tells SX. “It takes ordinary life and makes it into this hotbed of longing and desire and loneliness and love.

“I hope that audiences walk away looking at the routine of their lives and begin to connect the daily routine of their lives with those secret thoughts they have that we all keep to ourselves – about what joy might be and what happiness might be.”

Flack is making his directorial debut with Arabian Night, and came across the 2001 play through his day job as Company B’s literary manager. “When you read that many plays you actually begin to feel this thing in your stomach – it’s that simple,” he says. “You suddenly realise that you’re actually quite excited – that healthy anxiety of what’s going to happen next is thrumming in your stomach.”

Schimmelpfennig is one of Europe’s most prolific dramatists. At age 38, he has written 16 plays that have been translated into 20 languages. “It’s as though he peeks into our minds as we cram into buses and trains at the end of the day, and takes all our secret thoughts about amazing love affairs and an escape from the humdrum of life, and puts them up on stage,” Flack muses.

Arabian Night is the first show to appear under the banner of Bobs Presents, a collective of ambitious Sydney theatre practitioners.

“There are a whole lot of things that theatre can do that theatre’s not doing in Sydney,” Flack asserts.

“We’re interested in trying to discover how wonderful it can be to work together with a group of people and to work on challenging plays – and just to find out what else is possible, instead of doing the same old thing I suppose.”

Flack believes that the shortcomings of Sydney’s theatre industry often betray the passion and talent of its practitioners. “I think there’s enormous energy and I think there’s fantastic work happening with little to no resources,” he says. “But I think it’s time that some serious attention is paid to the resourcing of theatre in Sydney – I mean really serious attention.

“I think that it’s time there was some appreciation shown for the work – the value of the work. There are a whole lot of people – really great artists – out there who are struggling to get by, who have an enormous amount to offer but aren’t being allowed to offer what they’ve got.

“It’s far from an ideal situation, and most audiences don’t realise [that often] the work is being made for nothing – I think a lot of audiences think that everyone is being paid.”

Arabian Night by Roland Schimmelpfennig, SBW Stables Theatre until August 23. For tickets call MCA TIX on 1300 306 776 or visit griffintheatre.com.au
   

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