FUTURE PROJECTS

Aphrodite

‘Rules of acceptance’ are embedded in every story we tell. However, although a story is a vessel for powerful expectations, the story can change. 

It is worth questioning the ‘rules of acceptance’ embedded within stories we ingest daily. Where do they come from? Why do we follow these rules? What happens when we break them?

It is worth remembering that there are certain people benefitting from the perpetuation of these myths, and certain power structures that are reinforced by them too.

And it is also worth remembering that it is just that: a myth.

It is not that beauty is or isn’t powerful, it is that we still believe in a mythological goddess who equates beauty and love, conflates them as one in the same.

But we know this to be false. Humans are capable of loving each other, of connecting with each other, of accepting each other and desiring each other for reasons far beyond the surface of outer appearance. 

So, after we are done deconstructing prevailing mythologies, perhaps we can tell each other different stories, ones where love and acceptance can be found beyond the skin-deep surface-level outer appearance.

We have five senses, after all. Why should vision get all the glory?

Aphrodite is an opera composed by Nico Muhly, Laura has been commissioned to write the libretto for the Sydney Chamber Opera.

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that there is no true way by which any woman should conform. It is through other people’s expectations and assumptions that a woman becomes ‘feminine’. De Beauvoir acknowledges that women are expected to strive after beauty, a beauty that has been defined by men’s view of what they would like women to be, a view that often denies women their capacity for action and thought. There have been different ideals of feminine beauty at different times and different places, but the constant throughout history is that women have been encouraged to be passive - their bodies emphasised and displayed. To be acceptable, women are expected to use artifice to make themselves ornamental. Women’s clothes and shoes frequently constrain their movement, while their beauty regimes dominate their lives and drain their finances. Women are controlled by other people’s visions of what they should look like and how they should live. The pressure to be conventionally beautiful, to diet, to worry about makeup and jewellery, (to become an object for the male gaze) is intense. But still, according to de Beauvoir, this is resistible. Women are fundamentally free to reject male stereotypes of beauty and sexual attractiveness and become more equal as a result. There is no way by which any woman should conform.

What role does the myth of Aphrodite play in reinforcing these expectations?

Plunder

Some things aren’t reversible. Once they’re done, they’re pretty hard to undo. Like birth. Like death. Like mining the deep-sea.

This is true: At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, lay millions of poly-metallic nodules. Each nodule took millions of years to form, is about the size and shape of a potato, and contains certain metals that are classified as rare earth: metals like Cobalt, Nicol, Manganese, Copper, Zinc, Gold, and Silver.

Told in rhyming, rhythmic language, Plunder is a semi-true story about deep-sea mining. At its heart, this play is about a father, a daughter, and a global conundrum, set against the clock.

Laura is currently a part of Theatre Works’ She Writes collective and Plunder is being developed with support of Theatre Works.