THE BLURRED MAN
2023
(full-length play | in development)
A serious farce about art, truth, and hoaxes that just won’t die
One-line: While interviewing a painter, Ellie awakens a long-forgotten ghost from the past. As ghosts, detectives, and poets take over their house and studio, they realise that the importance of Ern Malley is that sometimes a hoax is exactly what we need to see things clearly.
Synopsis: In the middle of a storm, Ellie interviews Nick, a painter entering his tenth Archibald prize. Nick is painting Ern Malley, the poet at the centre of the 1943 hoax, and seems to have awakened the ghost of the poet’s sister, Ethel. As Ethel firmly entrenches herself in Nick’s house and studio, she tests the patience of everyone (especially Nick’s wife and baby daughter), until drastic action is taken. But Detective Vogelsang is on the case, and is determined to get to the bottom of Ethel’s reappearance – even if it means dragging them all to court.
The detective calls the first witness, publisher Max Harris, who gives a spirited defence of the poems in the face of withering cross-examination. Realising nothing adds up, the participants rebel against the detective, who admits to not actually being a detective, but a playwright. They do what they do best – change the scene, and calls on the original hoaxers, poets Jim McAuley and Harry Stewart. Alarmed to find their creation in flesh and blood, Jim and Harry take pains to confirm Ethel is a fabrication. On the losing side of the argument, Jim and Harry leave, and the playwright tries to pick up the loose ends and tie them together. As a gesture of goodwill, Max gives Ethel her brother’s poems back, before they disappear – just two more memories in history’s pocket.
Image: Glenn Saunders