Caring for children isn’t an easy job. With the everyday pressures of early morning school runs, the extracurricular activities. You're an experienced chef; the household cleaner booked in daily. Constantly on call. Most doing all this while building careers and working jobs.
Add in the variables of elderly parents and your day is spent in the doctor’s office, or doing late-night hospital runs because mum had another fall. Oh. . . And friends. They factor into the equation too. These friendships, according to Melissa Western and the cast of 'Dirty Fame Flash Candles Club', are paramount to our survival.
Melissa calls this the ‘sandwich generation’ because we are juggling everything, sometimes on our own, which was the case for Melissa during the birth of this show with a 7 and 9 year old. Melissa chats to scenestr about motherhood, friendships, co-parenting, a career in theatre and carrying everything at once, and the impact that has while finding a release somewhere in the mix. . . Which is exactly what this show is about.
Win tickets to 'Dirty Fame Flash Candles Club' in Brisbane.
It’s a real-life feminist tale without boasting the label, about women coming together to support and nurture each other and reclaim themselves in a busy world through the nostalgia of yesteryear, and come back to who they are for a moment.
“I’d done a lot of jazz, cabaret and more '40s and '50s vibe kind of work, but my formative teenage years are those dance films of the 1980s. 'Dirty Dancing', 'Footloose', 'Fame'. It’s a bit of a zeitgeist for women of my age that these things are a core part of who we are. I’d never engaged in '80s content before, but I wanted to get that nostalgic feeling amidst the craziness of what an incredibly full and pressurised life is. It’s like a shortcut to joy; to remember the carefree nature of being a teenager and be involved in those storylines of those movies.”
With a background in theatre, studying music at university, to curating her own shows with her children’s father, then being the brainchild behind this show in her era of single motherhood, it’s no surprise this all-female power cast, with a strong foundation of real life friendship and hardship under them, was awarded not one, but two Matilda Awards for best musical cabaret and best ensemble.
“When I first had the idea I was like, I want to make something that speaks to my friends at the point of life that we were in. We have so many pressures. We need a release valve to remember what it is like to be together and support each other. I wanted a really great excuse to make a piece of ridiculousness with all of my other dickhead friends.”
Little did she know, the show would evolve into much more than her initial expectations.
Image © Katie Bennett, Embellysh Photography
“During the process of creating this show, my husband unexpectedly left, so the creative development ended up being this kind of therapy in a way where I had this group of women around me, helping me through this massive personal crisis. That also informed further what the work was, which is the experience of women holding each other.”
The show stars Brisbane women, Melissa Western, Bridget Boyle, Lizzie Moore and Helen Cassidy who are on a mission to bring you into their tight-knit friendship circle and help you let go for a night. This show was also co-created with Neridah Waters of Common People Dance Project.
“I never had the right personality to be in blockbuster musicals. I didn’t like the idea of doing what other people told me to do. I wanted to make my own original works, which is time-consuming and expensive, but very satisfying when you know it's a thing that we have created together.”
The show is oozing with Australian personality, curated from the everyday characters. Based on archetypes of different women you’d see in the school yard at pick-up. The boss lady in the power suit, the suburban soccer mum, the deli lady who is actually the leader of the mum club.
'Dirty Fame Flash Candles Club' plays Brisbane Powerhouse 6-7 February.
