The Varnished Untruth (15 page)

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.

The ride back was cold but mercifully brief. On board the yacht, the partying continued, but I remained withdrawn, remote. Ile Saint-Honorat had reconnected me with myself. My meta-analysis continued in London, where I reread Eric Berne’s
Games People Play
(having first read it in my early twenties) and, three weeks afterwards on 20 June 1978, I scribbled an important passage in my notepad:

I’m wondering . . . which part of that passage was most important to you?

I’m not even sure, although actually, I find it acutely to the point at this time in my life too – ‘desperate attempts to maintain the illusions’ certainly speaks to me. I had already been profoundly affected by reading Arthur Janov’s book
The Primal Scream
several years previously. That was the first time I was made aware of the notion that the unconscious mind harbours all kinds of traumatic memories from childhood that subtly influence our behaviour. I tried Janov’s method of abreacting trauma – having a good old scream when no one was around – but I’m not sure how helpful that was. Not recommended while driving either (in Australia I used to let loose in my car).

But at Ile Saint-Honorat I was reminded where I had been, and where I hoped to go. I was not a party girl, I was a dedicated performer. All right, you might think this is a bit on the hokey side, but, in a way, I sort of knew something was about to happen. I could just feel it in my sea-chilled bones.

But, explain to me, why exactly did you feel you needed to protect your talent? Was it under threat?

Most people I met in London just after I arrived did not understand that, due to my training, my work in Australian theatre, TV and film – and all my informal theatre studies in various countries – I was pretty experienced. I felt I was rather . . . accomplished . . . but I wasn’t good at proving it. Well, after all, a young British woman of my age probably would not have had the same opportunities for professional experience as I’d had in the less crowded arena of the Australian theatre scene. However, I didn’t present myself the right way; in my high heels, heavy make-up, brightly coloured clothing and long, bleached hair, I looked more like a contender for the Eurovision song contest than the kind of person you’d see wandering around the RSC. Then there was my Australian accent, which tended to make people guffaw. I was upset at how snobbish people were about ‘Antipodeans’.

It had certainly been tough for me when I first arrived. I hadn’t planned to stay in London but I was flat broke, having already spent all my money travelling thus far. I remember standing at a public phone at Heathrow airport, trying to find a very cheap hostel. I had roughly twenty pounds in my pocket. A man who overheard me took pity on me and arranged accommodation for me at a female friend’s house. Now, of course, that could have been a rather dodgy scenario, but I had been travelling for a long time by myself and had learned to size people up pretty fast. This guy, John, was all right. In fact, he was a very kind person who really was as good as his word. His friend turned out to be a beautiful blonde model and I stayed first with her in the centre of London, and then with her sister in Fulham. And John introduced me to a young man called David who became a loving, protective and enormously supportive boyfriend for some time (we’re still friends). Boy, was I lucky to fall on my feet like that!

But it was hard to get used to being around urbane, well-off and sophisticated people like David and his brother, not to mention his brother’s terrifyingly chic girlfriend who worked for a Parisian fashion house. David tried to groom me as best he could, but I think it was amusing to them that I was so ignorant about fine food, cars, art or fashion, and frequently put my foot in it. The jetsettish side of life was a complete mystery to me. What the hell was a truffle? Who were Georgio and Karl? I pretended I knew. It was a bit like being back at SCEGGS, trying not to appear too crass beside all my fellow students from ritzier suburbs. I remember David trying to explain the concept of a Fabergé egg to me, but it was quite baffling. ‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘Why would anyone bother?’ I was mortified when, on our first date, he jumped out of his Porsche to buy me two dozen red roses from a street stall. Two dozen? That would pay my rent for a week. I was a kind of female Crocodile Dundee.