An unexpected call from a library derails a performance planned by newly arrived drag artist Goody Prostate, booked to headline a local reading hour. Forced to scramble together a new act in real time for a crowd of unruly children and their parents, Goody spirals into a chaotic exploration of childhood, memory, stories and what it means to truly grow up. The library is open – sit down, be quiet and listen. Because sometimes, reading is what? Fundamentalist.
Would you mind giving us a brief insight into what your show/event/performance is?
Oh, it would be my pleasure.
Well. The show is called KINDER, and it follows the story of Goody Prostate; a drag-clown who has just touched down in a new city, and is about to make their performance debut at a gig they’re booked to headline that evening. All hell breaks loose, however, when Goody receives a call and realises that they have grossly misinterpreted the nature of the gig they’re booked in for, and they have less than an hour to pull together a new look and act for an audience they were not expecting.
From there, we kind of spiral into a long overdue interrogation (or rant?) about children, parents, books, and stories, and the growing anti-queer sentiment we’re experiencing from all corners of the globe at the moment. You know, all the usual things covered in a 60-minute Edinburgh Festival Fringe show.
Tell us about the creative team and the process involved?
KINDER really began as a series of small, reactive choices I made last year that sort of snowballed into what is now our international debut of the show, barely 12 months after being first conceived. I had just been dropped by my agent and was dealing with the fallout of a toxic creative partnership that had really burned me and a lot of other theatremakers close to me, and I thought – f**k it – it’s time to start making my own sh*t then.
So I started jotting down a bunch of random, disconnected thoughts, themes, and stories from my own life, and married them all to this random (wine-fuelled) thought I had one evening of what would happen if a drag queen was booked to perform at a ‘reading hour’, but they thought that it was actually a roast?; and suddenly KINDER was born. I was all registered for Melbourne Fringe, now I just had to make the damn thing.
I’ve been involved in the local theatre scene here in Melbourne for the better half of a decade now, so what followed was an Ocean’s 11-style montage of assembling together a crack team of creatives I’d collected from productions past, including the brilliant sound designer Jack Burmeister and lighting designer Kyra Ryan, dramaturgs Kat Yates and George Lazaris (who are also incredible directors in their own right; remember those names!), and my now-director, Tiah Bullock – in her directorial debut, mind you. From there we fleshed out my random assortment of ideas on the floor and threw together a show, which premiered at Melbourne Fringe to (surprisingly) great critical acclaim, and with a couple of awards under our belt we then toured to Adelaide Fringe for another well-received, award-winning season just a few months. And now we’re set to make our international debut as part of Underbelly’s Cowgate program this Edinburgh Fringe, which feels a little bit wild. It really has been the-little-show-that-could.
Excitingly, for this season, we’ve brought some new minds into the work to help flesh out the world even more, including a costume designer for the first time, the brilliant Asha Barr. Asha’s designing an entirely new, original costume for the show’s finale, and whilst this costume is one of the show’s surprises (so I won’t say too much more), I’m very excited with how it’s all coming along, and once again overwhelmed at the sheer talent of this team we’ve assembled.
How does it feel coming to the Fringe?
It’s both the first time I’ll have ever been at Edinburgh Fringe, and the first time I’ll have ever been a part of an international Fringe festival, so I’m equal parts cacking-my-pants-excited and cacking-my-pants-terrified. The biggest Fringe I’ve been able to be a part of before, Adelaide, absolutely pales in comparison to Edinburgh’s hefty program (so I’m getting ready to hustle harder than ever before), but I’ve also been told that the vibes are just *chef’s kiss* immaculate – so I know I’m in for a wild ride.
Mostly though, I feel incredibly privileged that the short life of my lil show so far has led me to being programmed in an incredible venue at the biggest open-access arts festival in the world, touring over with a bunch of other amazing Australian creatives and theatremakers. You don’t get too many experiences like that, hey?
With shows from all over the world at the Fringe, what sets yours apart?
Ooh, good question. Now there’s what, over 3500 shows taking place at Fringe this year? And KINDER is just one of those. And if Fringe has been taking place for well over 75 years, and we multiply that by however many thousands of shows have been put on each year it’s been around, then we have… a lot of shows.
Now somewhere in all of those hundreds of thousands of shows (or millions? I don’t know maths, I work in theatre ffs), there’s going to be something like KINDER. A 60-minute show that blends theatre, drag, and storytelling isn’t exactly ground-breaking for Fringe, I know. BUT – we’re going through a particularly unique point in history right now; one in which we’re seeing a number of old societal ideals resurface and clash with a progressively techno-centric world that seems incongruent with the values people are fighting to conserve. And you throw a drag/theatre/storytelling show into that mix? With Goody Prostate at the helm? Well. Good(y) luck.
No other shows this Fringe will feature Goody telling you what’s what with the world right now, and baby, that sets KINDER apart from other shows more than Pluto’s 2006 categorisation of dwarf planet set it apart from the rest of our solar system (RIP).
(Btw it’s probably not millions of shows that have been at Ed Fringe, I just attempted some rudimentary maths. But it’s still a sh*t-tonne).
Is there anything specific you’re hoping the audience will take away?
I want people to go away imagining the different futures that could be available to them, or their children, or their children’s children, or their children’s children’s children. I want them to know that it’s ok to learn about other people’s stories, and acknowledge them as being just as important as their own life story. I want them to go away with the understanding that multiple, often seemingly conflicting things can be all true at once, and that that doesn’t discount their own understanding of the world. I want them to know that we can do anything; and as liberating and freeing as that is, that it also requires an acknowledgement of the privilege to be able to do so, and a huge amount of care and consideration.
But that’s a really tall order for a 60-minute Fringe show at 6:40pm. So mostly I hope they have a laugh with me, have a laugh at me, and take away the knowledge that the rich tapestry of lived experiences that we call queerness is a far nicer blanket to wrap society in than whatever cheap, thin fabric it’s currently being cloaked in.
Your Ideal audience is in attendance, who’s watching? Or more importantly – who isn’t…?
The entirety of the current US Congress. Upper and lower house. Let’s cram all 535 voting members into my 60-seat venue at Cowgate.
No but seriously, this is a bit of a funny one; in that I think the show’s greatest impact is served when there are people sitting in the audience who don’t want to be there, or didn’t choose to be there, or don’t particularly find the initial premise of the show that interesting or compelling. Because it likes to catch you off guard.
One thing I’ve learned across the 2 seasons of the show so far is that the show palatably presents a number of ideas about queerness, childhood, and parenting that don’t isolate non-queer audiences, but rather invite them into those conversations. It acknowledges the great amount of strain we put parents under, and the fallacy of trying to be the perfect model to children; something we will always fall short of. And as much as I started the show from a place of unapologetic, middle-finger-pointing-F**K-YOU queer rage that I had no desire making accessible to non-queer audiences, it is those folks who have stayed around afterwards to talk with me about how impactful they found the work, and the lessons that they’ve taken from Goody that they will now take back out into the world with them.
Maybe that’s actually a better response to your previous question about what sets KINDER apart from the rest of Fringe’s programming.
It’s an intense month, so where you’re able, how do you plan to relax, and are there any other shows you intend to see or want to recommend?
The incredible thing about Edinburgh Fringe is that it feels like there are shows at almost every hour of the day; I’m so used to the Australian Fringe circuit, where things only really kick off in the later afternoon/early evening, so I’ll be packing as much in as possible when I’m not getting ready or performing my own!
My (already rapidly expanding) list of shows so far includes some other incredible Australian works that I haven’t yet been able to catch back home who are also touring to Edinburgh for their international debuts, including Em Tambree’s Altar at Underbelly and Hayley Edwards’ Shitbag at Summerhall. Of course, I also have to shout out Beth Paterson’s incredible biographical work, NIUSIA, which will also be premiering at Summerhall), as well as the return of Darby James’ Little Squirt, which will be over at Gilded Balloon!
In your ideal world, how can we improve the Fringe, performance, and the industry?
It’s probably been said way, way too much, but honestly; better funding. And that goes for the industry as a whole, with Fringe just being a microcosm of this. We speak about the intrinsic value of art all the time, and I honestly believed that the rhetoric we were all espousing during the lockdown-era of the ongoing pandemic; about how important art was, especially since we were all turning to it with nothing else to really do in our homes, would lead to some fundamental shifts in government arts funding. But unfortunately, we’ve returned to a world where we seem to have forgotten about those conversations, and artists and arts organisations have experienced even greater funding cuts in the post-lockdown world (at least within in an Australian context; though the cynic in me believes this is probably part of a larger global trend)
It’s incredible, though, what artists can create when their focus is entirely on their creative process, rather than incessantly thinking about ticket sales, budgets, and marketing campaigns. For international artists touring to Edinburgh, it can be excessively expensive, and pricing artists out of presenting their works on such an important platform means we’re only privileging the works of those who are able to consistently fund their tours. We need to imagine a future where artists and audiences alike can engage with art where cost; either that of staging/touring a work, or the cost of buying a ticket, isn’t a barrier. Think of the stories we’re missing out on!
KINDER runs at Venue 61: Big Belly – Underbelly, Cowgate
Photo credit – Mayah Salter
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