‘The Eternity Man is a film opera which defies convention’. he ternity T E An OPERA by an JONATHAN MILLS M DOROTHY PORTER A FILM by JULIEN TEMPLE Produced by ROSEMARY BLIGHT, JOHN WYVER AND ALEX FLEETWOOD ‘The Eternity Man is a film opera which defies convention’. A STUDY GUIDE BY MARGUERITE O’HARA Principal Cast Arthur Stace GRANT DOYLE http://www.metromagazine.com.au Myrtle Stace CHRISTA HUGHES http://www.theeducationshop.com.au 1 An OPERA by JONATHAN MILLS DOROTHY PORTER A FILM by JULIEN TEMPLE Produced by ROSEMARY BLIGHT, JOHN WYVER AND ALEX FLEETWOOD Principal Cast Arthur Stace GRANT DOYLE Myrtle Stace CHRISTA HUGHES ‘The Eternity Man is a film opera which defies convention’. ‘The Eternity Man is a film opera which defies convention’. An OPERA by JONATHAN MILLS DOROTHY PORTER A FILM by JULIEN TEMPLE Produced by R OSEMARY BLIGHT, JOHN WYVER AND ‘Eternity,An OEternity!PERA by ALEX FLEETWOOD Oh, that this wordJON AcouldTHA beN MemblazonedILLS across DtheO RstreetsOTHY of P Sydney!’ORTER Evangelist preacher John Ridley, Sydney, 1932 A FILM by JULIEN TEMPLE Produced by The Eternity Man is a contemporary the single word, written in copperplate speak to people all over the world. The Australian opera about the life and times font – Eternity. Eternity Man is a universal story of hope of Arthur Stace, a reclusiveRO SydneySE MARY BLIGHT, JOHN WandY redemption.VER A ND character who chalked the word Eternity The film is a journey into the gritty heart more than 500,000 times all over Sydney. ofA SydneyLE itself;X aF placeLE ofE blackT Whumour,O ODuringD his journey of self-discovery he alcoholism, bashings, love, sex, lies and wrote his word almost 500,000 times; it ‘The Eternity Man is a film opera whshockingich beauty.defi Stacees c iso then archetypalventi onwas’. his mission to traverse the city to Synopsis outsider in the city; unobtrusive, its furthest reaches in order to spread distracted, flung from freak-show to his message. Now more than thirty The Eternity Man is a film opera about brothel to Baptist church, revealing years after his death, this mission has a Arthur Stace, reformed petty criminal, the secrets a city likes to keep to itself powerful resonance, to the point where World War One veteran and recovering through the autistic repetition of a single Sydney’s millennium celebrations were alcoholic, who haunted Sydney’s seedy gesture. As Stace walks through the crowned with his word lighting up the Principal Cast bars and brothels until a revelation one decades, from the 1930s to the present Harbour Bridge in neon, sending his night in a soup kitchen chapel. Stace day, he encounters some of the key Arthevocativeur St amessagece G outR AfromN SydneyT DO andY LE then spent nearly forty years chalking a events of the twentieth century. This story across the world. timeless message on the city’s streets: is rooted in the history of Sydney but M willy rtle Stace CHRISTA HUGHES 2 An OPERA by JONATHAN MILLS Principal Cast DOROTHY PORTER Arthur Stace GRANT DOYLE A FILM M byy rtle Stace CHRISTA HUGHES JULIEN TEMPLE Produced by ROSEMARY BLIGHT, JOHN WYVER AND ALEX FLEETWOOD Principal Cast Arthur Stace GRANT DOYLE Myrtle Stace CHRISTA HUGHES ‘The Eternity Man is a film opera which defies convention’. traditions of this style of dramatic and musical performance. This guide offers three sets of questions most closely related to particular subject areas, though there is overlap between them; any attempts to deconstruct the film purely in subject specific categories has limitations. However, given the complexity of this rich aural and visual experience, teachers could select particular sets of questions that relate best to the particular interests of their students. These sets of questions are headed: A. Drama and Musical performance B. AustralianAn O HistoryPER andA Societyby C.J OMediaNA andT HFilmA StudiesN MILLS ItD wouldOR probablyOTH beY useful PO toR readTE R through the background material about Arthur Stace and the glossary of key opera termsA relevant FIL Mto thisby production before watching the film. For some studentsJU LseveralIEN terms TE inM thisP glossaryLE may be familiar to them. BackgroundProduced by ROSEMARWhoY BwasL ArthurIGH Stace?T, JOHN WYVER AND ArthurAL EStaceX Fis generallyLEET referredWO Oto asD ‘The Eternity Man’, identified through this word that he wrote over many years all over Sydney Streets. He was an enigmatic figure, and below is a brief description of what is believed about his background. Arthur Stace was born in Sydney’s Balmain slums in 1884 into a family of drunkards and poverty. Both parents and Sydney from the 1920s to today, as siblings were alcoholics, leaving him to well as dramatized reconstructions of often fend for himself. He used to steal Curriculum Relevance milk from the doorsteps, pick scraps of The Eternity Man would be of interest imagined events from Arthur Stace’s life and times. All dramas, whether musicals food out of garbage and shoplift cakes and relevance to senior secondary and and sweets. tertiary students of: or plays, are set in a particular period and place and generally reflect something His formal schooling was practically • Musical Styles and Performance of their age. However, some can be non-existent, and at the age of twelve he transposed into another time and place. became a ward of the state. By the time • Drama It is hard to imagine The Eternity Man set he was fourteen he had his first job – in • Media and Film Studies ‘The Eternity Man is a film opera whanywhereich dotheref ithanes Sydney, con sov integralenti ao na’ coal. mine – and his first pay cheque • Australian History and Culture part of Stace’s story is the city itself. he spent in a hotel. As a teen Arthur had • English A distinctively Australian opera about already become an alcoholic. By age fifteen Arthur went to jail for the first time, • Religious Studies a relatively contemporary figure should offer students a chance to broaden their and it soon became a regular affair. The Eternity Man is a film of an opera, view of what operatic productions can staged and filmed on the streets of He was in his twenties when he moved to be. It may enhance their understanding Sydney, the action unconfined by the the thenP seedyrin ciinnerpa suburbl Ca ofst Surry Hills. of the ways in which a contemporary limits of a theatrical stage. It incorporates He worked as a ‘cockatoo’, a person who opera, while referencing earlier styles andAr thur Stace GRANT DOYLE some wonderful archival footage of would lookout for the cops at a ‘Two-Up’ approaches, can re-invent and extend M yrtleschool. Sta Hece was C mixedHR upIS withTA various HU GHES 3 An OPERA by JONATHAN MILLS DOROTHY PORTER A FILM by JULIEN TEMPLE Produced by ROSEMARY BLIGHT, JOHN WYVER AND ALEX FLEETWOOD Principal Cast Arthur Stace GRANT DOYLE Myrtle Stace CHRISTA HUGHES ‘The Eternity Man is a film opera which defies convention’. housebreaking gangs and worked as a scout for his sister’s brothels. Stace was enlisted in the army during World War One in France and returned to Sydney gassed and half blind in one eye. He resorted back to the old habits of the grog, leading him into trouble with the law, until finally one day he stumbled upon an inspiring sermon by Rev. R.B.S. Hammond at the St Barnabas’ Church on Broadway, Sydney. Stace was so inspired by the words, he became enamored with the notion of eternity and converted to Christianity. Two years later Stace heard Evangelist John G. Ridley at the Baptist Tabernacle in Sydney’s Darlinghurst preach on ‘The Echoes of Eternity’ and the word began to ring in his brain. An OPERA by Incredibly, even though Arthur could hardly write his own name legibly, the JONATHAN MILLS word Eternity ‘came out smoothly, in a beautiful copperplate script,’ Arthur said DOROTHY PORTER in disbelief. Not even Arthur could stop himself from inscribing the word ‘Eternity’ everywhere, saying it was directed A FILM by to him from a higher source. Several mornings a week, Arthur would wake JULIEN TEMPLE around 5am to go around the streets of Sydney and chalk the word Eternity on footpaths, train station entrances and Produced by anywhere else he could think of. It is estimated that he wrote the word half a ROSEMARY BLIGHT, JOHN WYVER AND million times during his lifetime. Workers ALEX FLEETWOOD arriving in the city would see the word freshly written, but not the writer, and so, ‘The man who writes Eternity’ became a legend in Sydney. It was, for over a decade, a mystery debated in the leading papers and their letters columns. He Glossary of relevant operatic terms Ensemble – a musical piece performed experimented with variations at times, by more than one singer, including duets but in the end he finished as he had Opera – a drama whose story is told (two singers), trios (three singers) and so begun – with the word Eternity. Others through music and song on up to any number of voices singing claimed responsibility for the messages, together Libretto – text, story or words of an opera since they were the object of a prolonged Overture – orchestral prologue to the public curiosity and speculation, but Composer – writer of the music of an he did not come forward. He saw his opera drama, played before the curtain rises, mission as evangelistic, but he didn’t and usually introducing a number of the Conductor – person who directs the want the publicity for himself; it was a opera’s musical themes orchestra and singers thing between him and God.