What kind of party-goer are you? Do you prefer intimate gatherings and one-on-one conversations? Or do you like to sit in a corner and observe everything around you, absorbing the mood and letting the evening wash over you?
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Cathy Petocz often finds herself in the latter category, sitting back and trying to navigate the different narratives happening around her. It's a reminder, in some ways, of how complex human relationships are, and how many different selves any one person has. How do people settle on any one self in the first place? Or, if they have several selves, how to they choose which one to show?
She remembers a time just after a break-up, years ago, hearing herself laugh, and realising the laugh wasn't her own. She had become so coupled-up that even her own laugh had been absorbed into the relationship – had become his laugh. He broke her heart and his laugh was still coming out of her mouth in the early days.
It was back then that she began to write Where I End & You Begin, a play about to open at the Street Theatre. Part crime thriller, part surreal sci-fi film noir, it's set in a multi-sensory double universe with an unconventional stage set-up.
"It's about searching for a sense of yourself and how that's complicated when you're in relationships with so many different selves," she says.
"It's a lot about relationship and connection and disconnection, so [there are] false selves, doppelgangers and impersonators and miniature selves and stunt doubles and things like that."
Set light years apart, the story, such as it is, follows two private detectives investigating missing person cases. One spends her time in cafes, the other floats around in outer space. A powerful connection brings them in touch, and the two worlds come slamming together.
Watching the play will be, in some ways, like being at a party.
"As an audience member, you have to make a choice of what you're watching," she says.
She recalls watching the play Love Puke at The Street, several years ago, that demanded more than the average night at the theatre.
"There was this great moment when six of the characters just suddenly started delivering monologues simultaneously, and I loved that as an audience member, having to just quickly decide who to listen to," she says.
"It felt really special, because it was quite possible that I was the only one listening to this one character. Of course, I missed out on the five others but I liked that. I felt like I had power as an audience member, to decide what to listen to."
She says the play does have a narrative, but not a linear one.
"It's kind of like a mystery plot, really. The two protagonists are private detectives on different cases searching for missing persons and there are lots of clues floating around," she says.
"It's not linear - there's a real sense that things are floating and orbiting. Half of it is set in space and the other half is set in a series of cafes, so there's a sense that the whole play is orbiting reality. There's an anchor, which is sort of the mundaneness of being."
If Petocz seems vague, it's because the work doesn't lend itself to easy explanation. And that, says director Caroline Stacey, is kind of the point; an immersive experience at the theatre can be just as satisfying as a straightforward, linear play.
"You're going for the fabric of the environment and the emotion, rather than just following the storyline, so it takes you to a lot of different places," she says.
"It takes you to feeling, it takes you to things like games of Cluedo and murder mysteries and figuring out who dunnit, – there's a playfulness about it and that party feel."
The play is set on a traverse stage with the audience seated on either side – watching itself watching, in a way. Stacey, who is also The Street's artistic director, says the play's aesthetic feeds into Petocz's original voice – a Japanese street-style modernist film noir, if you can imagine such a thing, "a bit CSI meets Gattaca", all set on a sort of lightbox running down through the audience.
"I think it's just one of those pieces that you will enjoy letting yourself go in - that's what it encourages," she says.
"Don't think too hard about anything, come in and immerse yourself in a saturation of images and feelings and sensations and sound."
Developed over four years through the Street's The Hive and First Seen programs, the play – which has a cast of five - is the product of a significant investment in local talent: a $35,000 grant from ArtsACT, which has been more than matched by The Street in developing and now producing the play.
Petocz presented it as an early draft in 2012, to be read by actors and discussed as part of the writing stage.
"The week of development with the actors was really useful, really working through the doubleness of the two plays, because it's quite musical in that way," she says.
"Writing the play has been almost like scoring music, because often dialogue runs simultaneously. So one part might be a part for the audience to hook into and the other part is sort of like supporting sound underneath, and then there are moments of unison and moments of discord, and then echoes."
Petocz mainly describes herself as a theatre artist, but she's also a writer, performer and pop musician. Last year, she wrote and performed two works for the You Are Here experimental arts festival. One was an installation theatre work, and the other was a Judy Blume-themed girl band called Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. While the band was only ever intended to be a momentary theatrical act, the group toured to Melbourne's Emerging Writers' Festival earlier this year and released an EP in August.
Stacey says investing in innovative works is important both for the artists themselves and for the Canberra arts scene. And multi-layered artists like Petocz are what Canberra does best – original voices from ponds all over the place.
"You're talking about a work that sits in the $80-90,000 [range], so it's a big investment, but one where I think it's about long-term development of a voice and of an artist," she says.
"It's also about saying to Canberra audiences, there's a whole range of ways that performances can be made and experienced, and this is part of something that's uniquely connected to this landscape and how our artists shape work here, and also it's the chance to be at the beginning of someone's career."
"Cathy's somebody that really comes out of the fabric of Canberra, works in a lot of different ways, and is really an artist that works in a range of art forms and I think has a very special take on the world, and she should be supported," she says.
Where I End & You Begin opens at The Street on October 18 and runs until Sunday, October 26. Bookings: 6247 1223 or thestreet.org.au.
