Prior to hitting the Sydney Opera House, the all-singing and all-dancing cabaret extravaganzaVelvethas been building its audience across the globe. Featuring some of Australia’s best stage and musical talent, coupled with burlesque, dance and circus performers, the spectacle is set to quite literally soar on home soil.
This hedonistic extravaganza led by the inimitable Marcia Hines has already been garnering awards, and as singer/performer Brendan Maclean and aerialist Emma Goh explain, the Sydney season is certain to have people dancing in the aisles.
“What I love about shows like this is that the audience is so close,” Goh smiles. “They can see everything that passes over your face, so you have to be on your toes. Sometimes when you’re on a stage that’s miles away, you can kind of get away with pulling a couple of strange faces and nobody will notice. But here, they can see everything! You need to be mindful. But it means you can interact with them a lot more – you have these moments where you’re connecting with different people, which makes it a much more intimate experience.”
“That’s the funny thing about live performance,” Maclean agrees. “As much as you are emoting, far more important than having tears rolling down your cheeks or whatever is making sure you don’t fall head over heels into the front row – which most of us has done at least once. This show has a lot of action, there are a lot of lights, a lot of technical aspects. You have to be careful you’re not being kicked in the head by a passing aerialist.”
He laughs. “You have to know every inch of the stage, you need to know what the backup singers are doing 20 feet away, you have to know there’s rigging there above you, and at the Opera House it’s only going to be more intense. We’re adding things that didn’t exist when we started in Adelaide. It’s going to be an incredible spectacle. Hey, you might get knocked out, but at least it looks impressive!”
Between the two of them, Goh and Maclean are certainly bringing a wealth of disparate talents to Velvet. Goh has travelled the world as a dancer, from stadium shows to intimate venues, and the musicality of her movement is astounding. Maclean is also no stranger to varied exposure, swinging between presenting on triple j and featuring in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby to his own burgeoning music career. Velvet will see the duo incorporate the full sweep of their talents, honed through years of practice, success and setbacks.
“Performing has become really competitive these days as well,” Goh explains. “Because there are so few jobs out there, you always need to be pushing yourself. These days it’s really important to have some ground skill that you can do, so you’re always working on increasing the acrobatic ground-based stuff you can do, and quite often that will help with what you do in the air. I’ve done a lot of cabaret work, but this show is different, and I’m just loving every moment of the ride. I’m sort of the sassy party girl, which is fun. I get to have a bit of attitude. It’s such a great cast, it’s so much fun to be a part of.”
“I come into Velvet as a very lost little boy who doesn’t have an outlet for his sexuality or performance,” says Maclean. “For me, Velvet really is about that. It’s promoting the individuality that I’ve struggled to balance with my performance. I was always terrified to use my real voice on triple j for fear of getting hundreds of texts saying, ‘You faggot.’ And I mean, you really do get those texts. Or performing at the Lansdowne and wanting to dress up and be myself onstage, and getting torn apart for it – for being myself, for being theatrical. For being a lover of queer culture and the queer community. So this show perfectly reflects my own journey, where finally, this character comes into themselves and opens up to so much love and success.
“I think Velvet is the first thing to push me further,” Maclean continues between sneezes – he has arrived direct from the airport, and is nursing a flu he assures me is highly contagious. “You can’t become an iOTA or [Paul] Capsis without a director like Craig [Ilott] grabbing you and saying, ‘I think you can do more than what you’re doing – how about it?’ I think otherwise my career might have lapsed a little or I would have ran out of ideas. I’ve thrown a dozen drag queens onstage with me at the Oxford Art Factory and done great spectacles of indie-pop shows, but nothing like this. I’ve never had so many talented people around me.”
Before they slip back into rehearsals, I cajole Goh into breaking the show down to its fundamentals; what folk should anticipate once they take their seats under the opera sails. She doesn’t need to think twice.
“Disco delirium. That’s our catchphrase. It’s fun, it’s a bit of razzle-dazzle. It has sombre moments as well, times when the music gets dark. But it’s about trying to revive and evoke that whole Studio 54 era. We really want to let loose and have a bit of a party, have people dancing in the aisles. There’s a beat that sneaks into you, and when you’re in such a close environment, it’s hard not to get lost in that energy.”
Velvet runsTuesday October 6 – Sunday November 1 at the Studio, Sydney Opera House.
