Dear Diary,
Raw, real and a tad confronting for any woman standing in the shadows of their youth reflecting on the life they'd envisioned for themselves and what reality has served up. A reality you're unable to hide from in this show, but one you'll gently come to terms with if you haven't already.
As a musician, Kay imagined herself to be serenading stadiums. Instead, she finds herself serenading the slimy Eels fan clapping the try on the screen behind her as she finishes up yet another lovely interpretation of a cover fallen on deaf ears. A story unfortunately not so unfamiliar to any musician playing pub gigs to make ends meet.The stage is set in a dark room, likened to a teenage bedroom with a mixture of plastic and metal coat hangers, holding up eclectic garments of growth around the perimeter and a lone guitar in a case covered in band stickers she'd acquired, which she may or may not have listened to because let's face it, it's cool to bridge out from COG to Cat Empire, right?
A spotlight shines on singer-songwriter Kay Proudlove, as she reads from a journal crafted back in time when that bedroom was a real place. As she reads on, having turned the pages of girlhood into poetic anthems of her youth, the audience too, is enticed into that same sacred space buried deep within her memory. 'Dear Diary' is a requiem for her dreams, wondering if she'll ever be enough for this world.
On the stage, it was just her and her guitar. In high school, it wasn't much different for the songstress, lugging the rock solid, decorated case around on her back all day. Was this done in an effort to look cool or perhaps was this always a part of her? It could be that this guitar served as a safety blanket and a means to interpret and understand the world as it changed around her and she changed in it.
Kay's ability to capture her own portrait and the characters in her story through a musical lens is spellbinding. Her hypnotic voice grabs a hold of the ever-changing, emotive words written down in her little book of feelings from yesteryear. Weaving through passages of song and psyche effortlessly; modal changes in angst, she draws you into her world, causing a ripple effect to reflect on your own womanhood and what maturing really looks like.
Kay touches on the deep-thought processes of a pubescent girl's mind. Obsessing over that boy who barely noticed us, but we felt an undeniable attraction to. . . and stalked, the girl gang we formed in high school and the part we played in the circle (we all wanted to be Baby Spice; not Ginger. . . or the bitch one), sucking in our tummies and eating less to look like the girls the magazines told us we had to be because let's face it, if you weren't skinny; you weren't pretty.
It was a time for many of us, when the excitement of our dreams was at the forefront of our minds and performing the lead in the high school musical felt like one day, you'd write a hit song and top the MTV music charts and possibly even feature on 'Rage' at 5am.
Kay takes us on a journey of a coming of age through the years as she catches up with that high school friend she has nothing in common with and finds herself in a change room trying on clothes she was never going to buy, listening in and regurgitating the dialogue through song of a Gen Z trying on her high school formal dress, of course, through the eyes of a grown up millennial.
She breaks into the school and sits in the space where her ambitions once manifested wondering how she reached this point. Fun fact. Acceptance (and a small cull of a wardrobe) avoids a midlife crisis.
You really feel with this show the entirety of womankind was standing beside you, comforting you and there are no barriers left to hold up. . . even if you wanted to.
The Adelaide Fringe season of 'Dear Diary' continues at The Studio @ Holden Street Theatres 20-23 February, 25-28 February, 1-2 March, 4-9 March.
