i was reading what i'd wrote for kinder's premiere at melbourne fringe in october 2024 before sitting down to type this. currently, ryan is in the uk (hopefully rehearsing) without me while i’m a mere 72 hours away from my own flight over. in that almost year of time between, so much has happened to the show that i read those words now through a strange window of success, love and pride. if i sound like a parent i think that’s only fitting - my therapist made that observation before i did, so i don't know if i'm even able to talk about it if not as ry and i's lovechild.
of course, kinder was ryan’s long before I came into the picture. It was on a car ride to ballarat, a small regional town, which was exhibiting some of nan goldin’s work that they described the bones of what is now the baby. they spoke of a few loose concepts which sat in their notes app, sinew-strung by three songs they wanted to include. one of which inevitably died with all the other darlings i, unknowingly, would later destroy.
i hadn’t directed before. i hadn't studied it. but I knew the story because I knew ryan, and it wasn’t long before we were speaking the language of the show; wading through ineffable ideas that’d float between us, slowly forming hands, eyes and a mouth. we were holding something, and it was time for an audience but i struggled to hand it over. when i think back now, i don’t think either of us really knew what it was, and so it didn’t feel like it belonged to anyone other than us. each night ryan performed, i almost wanted to give a speech explaining the show - the way a mother explains to a toddler how to hold a newborn. i was completely terrified and insecure. but suddenly, we won awards, jetting us back into a rehearsal room for adelaide fringe and now somehow here in edinburgh.
i told them immediately to write a script and maybe less than a month later, not without a few late night conversations in one another’s living rooms, we were in a dance studio, playing around with random paraphernalia they’d brought from home - a slide whistle, a butt plug and a spike collar to name a few - and ryan asking me:
‘how do you want to be involved?’.
‘i want to be your director’.
• kinder
director's note (edinburgh, 2025)
concepts by asha barr
