After touring France, 'I Sing Piaf's Georgia Darcy now stops to smell the crepes.
Attitudes towards Aussies abroad has been a focus of late, with the limp derrieres of the Budgie Nine plastered across the nightly news. For Georgia Darcy and her partner and co-star Louise Lawson, touring their Gallic-themed debut cabaret show 'Georgia With A G' in the home of Piaf caused reflection upon their nationality and the experiences spawned their sophomore show, 'I Sing Piaf'.
“There’s an element to the show of self-examination; what you feel like as an Australian when you are overseas and then when you come back,” Georgia says.
“We expected to be loved as Australians and we expected that because I could speak and sing French, they would think it’s fantastic, and that was true; we were treated really well.”
The voyage into unknown waters did shine a spotlight on to some alternative ways of living, though, particularly regarding two notorious French amours: gastronomy and art.
“I think they found our ways with food a little amusing because we would be walking along the street eating a crepe or something, but in France in particular they don’t do that; you sit down and take time over [food] and talk about how it was prepared; you don’t just stuff it in your mouth on the run. People would laugh at us if they saw us eating on the street and we started to be impacted by it; we stopped doing that and realised what we were missing out on.”
“I think that I loved being in a country where the arts were so important; I felt so validated as an artist and realised that there are other people that are as deeply affected and consider art part of their lives; dressing up and make-up or letting yourself show through in your cabaret. This was always important to me but I was immersed in a culture where it was foremost and it strengthened my confidence and conviction that it’s ok to be an artist; it might not be financially viable but it’s an important part of being human.”
While France was foreign territory, Georgia and Louise have faced much of their lives as outsiders, growing up in a society which vilified those who loved in ways that fell outside of the norm. 2016 is the fourth year in a row that Georgia has performed during Feast; a festival that has boldly advocated for LGBTI rights for 20 years this year.
“We’re middle aged and a lot of LGBTI people of our age, when we were growing up it wasn’t acceptable at all to be gay and transgender was only just emerging. From my perspective being a lesbian was dangerous to even talk about; you couldn’t talk about it to your best friend or your mum or anything and yet here we are able to be in a show celebrating that.”
'I Sing Piaf' is not only a celebration of queer relationships generally, but also a testimony to the special bond that Louise and Georgia share particularly. “Louise and my relationship and the strength of that love shines through in the rapport that we have on stage; people tell us that all the time. In Feast people really enjoy that, and we do ham it up a little bit; we do have a lot more queer culture jokes in there.”
“We write the shows together and we write them in our lounge room or often in the bedroom laughing and giggling and saying 'quick write that down, add it to the show' so they often get written quite organically from the experiences of our lives.”
“Louise often says while we are doing the show 'it’s just like we’re in the lounge room and we’ve invited everyone over and having a good time'.”
A warm invitation into the lounge room of this loving lesbian couple would likely be sufficient to eradicate intolerance in even the most bigoted heart.