the story of the oars
A Play by Nigel Featherstone
Music by Jay Cameron
Performed at The Street Theatre, Canberra, September 2025
The Reviews
“The music is the standout triumph of the performance... Cameron’s soundscapes are atmospheric, at times austere and laconic, at others lyrical and melodic, but always compelling... Cameron’s music lends gravitas and credibility to the whole enterprise”
“Cameron’s percussive manipulation of hammers, keyboard and strings evokes an eerie tone of mystery and foreboding... Cameron’s composition is the pulse that creates the shifting flow of our emotions”
“The music is minimally percussive at times, or softly melodic or intense at others, always supporting the prevailing emotions without dominating them or being cliched. We loved it.”
The Story
Somewhere on the east coast of Australia, summer: four teenagers, including three brothers, drown on a lake. Thirty years later, with the lake now dry, Clocker and his son Tom make a visit. But when two lakeside residents appear, they are embroiled in an unimaginable commemoration – and unburden themselves of the truth.
The Music
In The Story of the Oars, the music was to be a fifth character, emobying the character of the Lake (the setting of the play). In the script, the Lake inspires, taunts and tortures the characters, leading them every closer to the revealing of truth. The music is performed live and centre stage with an upright piano, played using a mix of traditional and unorthodox techniques.
Musings on the Piano
The piano is an instrument that we think of as being at the bedrock of Western music, traditional, classic. With the guitar becoming the dominant instrument in popular music since the 1950’s, the piano has attained a status of reverence, as if it has always existed, etherial or natural - when in fact it is perhaps the most man made instrument. The piano as we know if it today is impossible without the industrial revolution - a complex piece of machinery with more moving parts than a car. Ryuichi Sakamoto once said of the piano that it is “nature bent into submission”, like the breaking in of a horse, so that the two can express as one. And yet, the chaos and violence of nature remain dormant inside the piano, and can be awoken with the use of unorthodox techniques. By releasing these wild sounds, the piano inhabits the character of the lake, giving it voice as it imposes it’s will on the characters and drives the narrative forward.
In SOTO, audiences are given a view of the piano that many will not have seen before. In the opening of the play, we remove the front panels of the piano, revealing it’s magical interior. This is done not only to enable the extraction of certain sounds from the piano, but also to augment the profound themes found in Nigel Featherstone’s writing. He has often described SOTO as the opening up of things, the revealing of things, and the inevitability of truth. In it’s everyday form, from the outside the piano looks so simple, elegant, solid and sturdy, it’s gloss black reflecting what is around it rather what is inside it. By taking it apart, we reveal it’s secrets, it’s complexity, it’s truth.