Ranters Theatre's Intimacy & Train Girl

Not long before going to watch Ranters Theatre's Intimacy, I was telling my dear baba (who loves stories) a story.

Intimacy, showing as part of the Melbourne Arts Festival, is a show based on the intimate moments one can share with total strangers, and the premise that only strangers can reveal who we really are. (Written by Raimondo Cortese, directed by Adriano Cortese, and devised by and starring Paul Lum, Beth Buchanan, and Patrick Moffatt.)

Breaking the fourth wall, Lum enters the stage and sets the scene: during a particularly lonely period of time, Lum felt the need to talk to someone. Instead of contacting friends or family, he decided to take to the streets and spark up conversations with total strangers. The show, rich in dialogue, then proceeds in re-enactment mode, showcasing the conversations Lum had with a string of quirky characters he encountered during this period of time.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about what I thought of the show - if you want to know, go here. But what the production did was provoke reflection, as it, itself, reflected a very special and unique aspect of life.

Intimacy reminded me of the story I told baba about a girl named Wyndham.

I met Wyndham at a university I attended. I had just been stung by a bee and was sitting in the waiting room of the university's surgery. Wyndham was there also. I don't remember how we got to talking, but do recall not saying much at all. Wyndham had that American sensibility - bubbly, chatty and fun to listen to.

Wyndham loved trains. Almost immediately after our respective brief, courteous introductions, her eyes lit up and she talked about trains. She spoke about trains for almost an hour and I listened.

Now, I like trains, i.e. I like riding on them and I believe most people find this quite enjoyable also. But Wyndham loved trains.

Wyndham loves:

1. Sitting on trains. During one trip to New York, she rode round and round on the subway, without a destination.
2. The sound of trains. The apartment she was living in at the time we spoke overlooked a train track. She had chosen this property because she enjoyed lying in bed and listening to trains go by.
3. The seats on a train.
4. Trains.
5. The control panel of a train station. She once saw a man shift a lever that changed the direction of a train track. She said that one day she would like to have a job like that, or anything to do with trains.
6. Riding on trains. Her favourite birthday/birthday present was a long train ride with her friends and family.
7. Trains.
8. New York. Because of the subway.

People come into our lives all the time. Sometimes they contribute something significant, at others, not at all, but that doesn't make their stay any less meaningful. People come and go, and on occasion, we find that brief encounters with strangers can often leave a permanent mark on our memories.

Almost every time I'm on a train, I think about Wyndham. I never saw her again after our chat. I also never thought of keeping in touch with her. I think sometimes we know who will stay in our lives, and who won't.

I do wonder sometimes if Wyndham is somewhere, cooped up in a control panel of a train station, shifting a lever, maybe somewhere in New York where they say, people go to make their dreams come true. Above all, wherever she is, whatever she may be, I do hope that Wyndham still loves trains.