After an overwhelming response from audiences in Brisbane – where it was hailed as the best Aussie musical sincePriscilla, no less –Ladies In Blackis soon to arrive for Sydney Festival.
It’s quite fitting, given our city is where the actual story takes place, and in light of recent events in world politics, the musical’s message of feminist values – you know, those no-brainers like equality and respect – is timely. Split Enz/Crowded House luminary Tim Finn, the composer and lyricist, chats about the development of the production, and the surprising length of time the prospect of staging a musical has been calling to him.
“I’ve honestly been thinking about it since the early ’80s, which I know sounds like a long time,” he says. “Almost at the peak of the fame of Split Enz, when we were at our most widely known and touring all the time, I’d often escape into a little fantasy land of doing a musical, though I originally thought I’d do a film musical. I even wrote a script, which is fairly poor, really. I remember as a kid I wrote a parody of My Fair Lady called My Fair Laddie, and the day before it opened for the school in the assembly hall, the lead got the mumps. I had to play the lead, and I’m sure not an actor, so that didn’t exactly whet my appetite to be in a musical, but it did whet the appetite for writing songs. That said, I wasn’t very good at it for quite a while.”
When you look at the course of Finn’s career – this is the man who co-wrote ‘Four Seasons In One Day’ and ‘Weather With You’, for goodness’ sake – it’s hard to imagine him struggling to find a voice. But just as it took time to find that spark for composition, so too did it take something like Ladies In Black to evolve his writing yet again.
“Because of director Simon [Phillips] and his wife [Carolyn Burns], who wrote the book, I really went through a huge learning curve on this project, and it’s so thrilling. When you’ve been doing something for years and years, and you know what your process is and wait for the good songs to roll, this was new. A new way of looking at narrative, character.
“Plus, Simon really loves cutting up songs and inserting dialogue, and it’s a real skill. When he first started doing it, I was quite dismayed,” Finn laughs. “I thought we were losing the song. You do verse, chorus, and suddenly there’d be two minutes of dialogue, and then back to the song! And that’s extremely disruptive when you’re used to songs being three minutes of compressed work. But I got used to it, and got to love it. I can see the energy that flows from that, and it’s amazing.”
Similarly, it gave Finn the experience of seeing his songs take on a very different life. His songs have always been meaningful, but rather ephemeral, with no physical shape beyond the bond of audience and performer. But here, his words could grow limbs and move about the stage independently.
“[The interpretation was] something I was outside of, though of course still emotionally connected to the song and the story and the characters. In rehearsal is when it first opens up, of course, and you just can’t ask for more. To see the cast engage with the song and actually make the characters – it is a really addictive and delightful thing. There’s a lot of work involved, but there is a huge pay-off.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the point when I went to the very first preview in Brisbane, when the woman sang ‘The Bastard Song’. Just about the whole audience started chuckling, and then laughing as they realised the pattern of the song. Every time a pithy line came out, they would laugh, and that was the most addictive thing that’s ever happened to me. I wanted to write more funny songs immediately.
“There was a lot of humour in Split Enz, but they weren’t funny songs. There was a lot of wit and oddness, but they weren’t straight-out make-you-laugh funny. That’s a side of me that I’d never explored before.”
At the time of our conversation, Crowded House are days away from their return to the Opera House, Ladies In Black is gaining momentum for its Sydney premiere, and Big Canoe, Finn’s second solo record, has turned 30. He’s also composed songs to the lyrics of late Australian poet Dorothy Porter for another Sydney Festival show, The Fiery Maze. Finn’s days are littered with quite a few milestones of late, and you can’t help but wonder just how nostalgic this has made him.
“It’s a good question, and hard to answer. I’ve only ever been one to look ahead and never look back, but certainly with age, you do find yourself looking back in wonderment and amazement, even scorn sometimes. You look back more.
“One of my favourite writers, Milan Kundera, he says elegiacal nostalgia is the true subject matter of all poetry and music. I always thought nostalgia was a dirty word, but when you combine it with the idea of elegy, that can be some of the fruitfulness and richness of older age. Even if you’re singing for people who aren’t with you any more, or whether it’s just time and memory. And the whole thing’s just so dreamy. You look back and think, ‘God, did that really happen?’ It’s that kind of feeling that you don’t quite get when you’re young. It’s a very rich source.”
Ladies In Black runs Tuesday January 3 – Sunday January 22atSydney Lyric,as part of Sydney Festival 2017. The Fiery Maze plays at Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, Saturday January 7 – Thursday January 12.
