Meet Rona von Stein, a mature-aged student who is living her life upside down, pursuing a bachelors degree at UNSW at the age of 69. A life-changing health condition saw her re-evaluating her direction in life and so she began to pursue challenges that reinvigorated her.
"I came from a mixed marriage—my father was a very left leaning accountant, while my mother (still very much alive and not-quite kicking at 93!), was the daughter of an army colonel and quite conservative in her views. Election time was always interesting in our family! Thankfully my father’s ideologies triumphed in what influenced me. It was your typical middle-class, bourgeois family. We weren’t overindulged, but my desperation for a pony at an early age saw me sent off for riding lessons and compulsory shovelling of horse shit in the hope I would soon lose interest. I didn’t. I haven’t.
I eventually got my pony. Many horses later I still ride nearly every day. As children we were allowed to develop what we wanted to be. We were given a lot of freedom to explore our passions, which saw me a little lazy at school, to the great frustration of my teachers who were very much aware of my potential. Other than horses, art was my passion, and after my HSC I attended The National Art School in Darlinghurst, but did not finish my degree. I guess growing up, I was not really dependent on having a degree. I dropped out, looking for an adventure. Gap year was unknown back then! After an aimless year or so I found my “adventure” in a radical performance group that some close friends had formed in the very early 1970s. It is a hard act to define, there were certainly gay men dressing as women, but “drag troupe” is not adequate enough to encompass the madness, chaos and anarchy of “Sylvia and the Synthetics.”
Sylvia and the Synthetics
Two friends, Denis and Paul, had rented a flat in Frenchman’s Road in Randwick. This flat had been closed up in the 1940s, contents left in place, then rented out as it was thirty years later. It was fabulous; like walking back in time. The guys discovered an old gramophone with an extensive collection of 78RPM records from the ‘30s and 40s. They would get stoned, play these old records and entertain each other. Paul was very entrepreneurial and decided there was fame to be chased by taking their “entertaining” public.
The first show was staged in an abandoned pawn-brokers in Taylor Square, and I joined the madness after that. The next two shows were held in an abandoned butcher shop downstairs from the guys’ flat. The Synthetics quickly gained incredible notoriety and, in the days before we had the internet and social media to instantly send things viral, word spread of any upcoming performance as quickly as if it was sent out on the ether. Each show was packed to the level any OHS inspector would have gone into meltdown.
Questions were asked about the non-existent “Sylvia,” so it was decided before each performance an announcement would be made that “Sylvia would not be performing as she has been decapitated in a car crash.” Or whatever other gruesome demise we could come up with. Other people wanted to join the chaotic, unrehearsed performances and we welcomed anyone game or crazy enough to want to be a part of the insanity. Performances involved blood, offal, snakes, sex, nudity, fish and near-drowning of the audience in a sea of water. I guess that’s why at the next show most of the audience stripped off and stood there nude in anticipation of waterworks. We’d moved on to the next assault on the senses.
In amongst Synthetics who went on to acclaim as famous artists, actors, writers, designers and one who became a world-renowned make-up artist before his death from HIV complications (as sadly did others), one notable member was Doris Fish. Doris (the name he preferred to his birth name of Philip), moved to San Francisco where he was lauded for his contributions to the arts and queer community, to the extent he was given the keys to the city and had a day named in his honour in 1990. Not long after he succumbed to complications from HIV.
The Synthetics even did a show at UNSW, which was memorialised favourably by an audience member in a letter to the editor of “Tharunka.” The letter writer did note however, the audience was less than receptive! No accounting for taste. This long forgotten letter was recently discovered by A/Prof Jonathan Bollen, from UNSW Theatre and Performance Studies and passed onto me. A treasure of the time.
A Life-Changing Diagnosis
After my time in the Synthetics I moved to the US, where I lived for a number of years before returning to Australia to build a career in marketing and branding in the fashion and travel industries. I reached a point in my life when I didn’t have to work anymore (I hate saying retired) and just relaxed, traveled and rode horses. In 2015 after having slightly worrisome symptoms for a year or more, they finally became serious enough I saw a doctor, thinking maybe some meds would fix things and I’d just carry on. That didn’t happen. Within a week I was diagnosed with “severe” cardiomyopathy, and told I would very likely need a heart transplant. Thankfully with serious intervention and the insertion of a defibrillator/pacemaker in my heart I have (so far!) avoided a heart transplant and am doing REALLY well. The biggest impact this had was to make me reevaluate the “existence” I was living in, and recognising I needed to embrace life with greater enthusiasm and find things that SERIOUSLY challenged me. What better “challenge” than to attend university as a VERY mature-aged student with the hope of finally getting a degree?
I found out about the UNSW “University Preparation Program” and signed up with great trepidation. Initially I thought “what the hell am I doing here?” but pushed through the panic. I settled in to the rhythm of academe and when I started getting HDs I realised maybe I might just be able to pull this off. After a couple of false starts in choosing a major (philosophy and linguistics sounded great, but in the end are just excellent efforts for my “free elective” requirements). Finally I discovered something I love and am doing extremely well in—Creative Writing and English as a double major. And this is where things have come full circle. It still makes me wonder at the way things have turned out! I vaguely mentioned something about my time as a Synthetic to one of the professors in the School of Arts and Media. She became very excited and insisted I speak to other professors who also shared her excitement. One of those “excited professors” is the aforementioned A/Prof Jonathan Bollen, who has been incredibly supportive and encouraging and now, something that still makes me shake my head and wonder if this is all real, I am writing the history of The Synthetics and their influence on the queer community. I am writing chapters as assignments in various ECW courses, and I have found a new passion and purpose. Yes, full circle. I cannot imagine, nearly fifty years ago, thinking this is how I would memorialise my time as a Synthetic.
Homophobia
The Synthetics evolved at a time of great transformation in Australia. After decades of conservative rule, the Whitlam government came to power bringing focus to the Arts, education and multiculturalism. Our timing was perfect. Homosexuality was still illegal, and to come out as gay could see any hopes of a successful career ruined. Even so, The Synthetics are remembered by many queer people who became fans and attended the performances, as transformative in their lives. Seeing others like them, out and proud with no inhibitions, validated many a repressed sexuality. It was a paradox I guess, on one hand it was dangerous to be gay, but here were these people celebrating it. There was a freedom found in this. No thought about the horror of AIDS that was to come, or movements towards equality that conversely brought even more hate from vocal sections of society. Marriage equality is so right, and legislation against discrimination are changes that will define a generation. And yet hate has become even more overt, and that does not seem to be improving. I don’t think this is just a result of part-acceptance of the queer community, but more of the rise of authoritarian politics worldwide. And the shrieking of the vocal minorities of religious fundamentalists.
What's the difference between our generations?
The stress, the fear, the pressure to succeed, the demand to not offend ANYONE and the application of political correctness to influence everything we do. Don’t get me wrong, I think in more instances than not to be politically correct is absolutely the right thing. I just observe so much that seems to be fearful reaction to the world we now live in. Terrorism; pandemics, climate change….who are we and how are we to survive? I guess in the years I was growing up, we were insular. We lived in bubbles. We didn’t think globally. We rarely saw past education, career, marriage and family. And then dying. But shouldn’t we go out kicking and screaming and having made a difference? Are the advancements in medicine, technology and life expectancy a good payoff for the fear we now experience? I am not sure, but tend to think yes. It’s progression. And if I am to end this interview with a return to my philosophy courses and ponder the meaning to life, the universe and everything, I will quote a favourite author, Douglas Adams, from a favourite book, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and say the answer is “42.”
