Can you answer these questions? How are you? What did you have for breakfast? Do you have a good memory? Did you share your bed with anyone last night? Are you comfortable talking about money? What’s the best age to be? Do you pray? Have you ever had a part of your body removed? Are you rich? Do your friends think you are rich?
I am an arts journalist, so I have trained the muscle that helps you sit through even the most turgid and indulgent performances – but a 12-hour unscripted show seemed ridiculous, even to me. The description for 12 Last Songs reassures that you can come and go at any time, to which I thought: thank God. But then I ended up spending six hours watching it, and the other six desperately wishing I was there.
12 Last Songs has been performed eight times in eight cities around the world: Leeds being the first in 2021 and Perth being the latest this past Saturday. Thirty-two workers are chosen to perform a “shift” on stage, while answering questions put to them by interviewers. There are 600 questions, all carefully designed to reveal something about them: their politics, their religion, their class. The creators say 12 Last Songs will only be performed 12 times in total; do whatever you can to convince them to bring it to you.
In Perth we start with Derek, a Whadjuk Noongar man who performs one of his many jobs – delivering the Welcome to Country – and Dan, a hulking painter-decorator who will wallpaper parts of the theatre throughout the day. “You’ll be with us a long time,” his interviewer offers. “Unfortunately, yes,” Dan says, drily.
There is a dog groomer, an imam, a midwife, a taxi driver, a hairdresser, a sex worker. Mark gives out bread and pastries from his bakery; he recalls leaving behind mining to move to Copenhagen, where he would buy a warm loaf and put it down his jumper to cradle against his skin on cold days: “The best thing ever.”
Peter, a martial arts instructor, reveals he was born at home with the umbilical cord around his neck, and how his older sister refused to go to school until she could see he was alive, pink and breathing. (A quick update from Dan: “I put some paper on the wall.”)
It is mysteriously compelling. Peter’s young students straggle on stage like ducklings and settle into some meditation. With all their eyes shut, they’re given new martial arts belts: they’re graduating today, to the surprise of both us and them.
When the kids open their eyes and gasp with unconstrained joy, a laugh bursts out of me because I realise I am crying; I am still not quite sure why. Later, when I tell this story to two people who were not there, we all laugh because even the retelling makes us cry. Maybe it is Peter’s unspoken pride, the generosity of his gesture, their love for him, or the reward of getting to observe all of this.
After two hours, I must drag myself away to see another show but all I can think about is what I’m missing out on. The moment the curtains fall, I run back and arrive in time for question number 250. Two chefs are on stage cooking everyone dinner (pasta and bruschetta), a naked life model is having her portrait painted, and a florist is arranging hundreds of flowers for a wedding.
Dan is still papering the walls. Hayden the lifeguard is up: he loves surfing, particularly barrelling a wave. What is it like? Hayden thinks it over. “Honestly, the closest way to describe it is like coming,” he says, and the room erupts.
Some people, like Hayden, are entertainingly open; some are guarded, even after volunteering to take part. Robert the heart surgeon answers three very big questions (are you in love; are you in a relationship; are you married) with three very short answers (yes, yes, no).
Rebecca the florist tells a room of strangers, clearly and without shame, about her miscarriage and her postpartum depression, and how she came to realise “that life is worth living and life is good”. The room applauds. In the corner, Dan begins papering the walls all over again.
Art, even when it is created centuries and oceans away from us, can move us because “our minds are built on common architecture – that whatever is present in me might also be present in you”, as George Saunders once wrote. This is why 12 Last Songs is so touching; it is a humanist experiment that works hard to expose the best parts of us.
The detachment I think most of us develop as adults can help us get through the bad and the boring – but it also makes us forget that common architecture, makes us less generous and less interested in each other.
At 11pm, David the astrophysicist is explaining the big bang to about 100 people, who have chosen to spend their Saturday night like this. Dan is in the crowd, finally finished. At midnight, the final, 600th question is asked (which explains the title, so I won’t spoil it). We listen to the answer, then wander off, elated, into the first minutes of a new day.
12 Last Songs was performed as part of Perth festival.
