With the aid of songs, glitter and sometimes uncomfortably candid anecdotes, Em Rusciano has turned her heartbreak into comedy inDivorce, The Musical!“‘Legally separated’ didn’t have the same ring to it so I went for something a little more dramatic,” she quips. “I started writing straight away after he moved out – I felt the need to write it all down and it made me feel better and I thought, ‘Surely there are other people who have felt like this.’”
Divorce, says Rusciano, is actually “a really positive show – I know people might be worried that it might be a bitter woman crying in the foetal position on the stage for an hour, but it’s not.” She reveals that the final two Sydney performances of the show will be especially unique, as “I’ll talk about us getting back together, which hasn’t been done before.”
For all the sadness of a break-up, Rusciano says it was never hard to find humour in her situation. “I’m ridiculous when I’m heartbroken. You know, like, family-size pizzas with Nutella on top and then going to clubs and trying to pick up 20-year-olds and then hating yourself and crying in the toilets somewhere in the club because you’re ten years older than everyone else … you just get desperate and you get so confused with sadness and pity that you just try stupid shit, which, thankfully, makes good material for onstage.”
The line between playing herself and playing a version of herself onstage isn’t always clear for Rusciano. “I’m Em for real, but dressed like a drag queen: glitter, leotards, headpieces, the whole lot,” she says. “If people are paying for a show, I’m going to fucking dress up and give them a show. I’m not going to get onstage in jeans and a T-shirt – I’m going to be in false eyelashes, nine-inch heels, sequins, feathers, the whole thing. So that juxtaposition of polished showgirl and tragic single mother, which I really enjoy fusing.”
In order to fulfil the musical aspect of the show, Rusciano’s father Vince joins her onstage playing the guitar. “[He] has to sit through a lot of things a father probably shouldn’t,” she says. Indeed, Rusciano’s work is raw, candid and sometimes controversial. “I’m a walking open wound, basically, so I don’t hold a lot of things back. I don’t set out to ruffle feathers … I like to tell the truth; I think it helps people like me, or dislike me, and it makes people know I’m authentic, which is a good way for a performer to be.”
This attitude has certainly won Rusciano plenty of support – her Facebook page alone has 57,000 fans. “That’s my community,” she says. “For so long I’ve been trying to fit in – I’m told to grow my hair or don’t be such a loudmouth or don’t be demanding, and I’ve spent the majority of my career in and out of commercial radio and television, and I got to the point that I thought, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to find my own tribe and start doing stand-up.’”
After working on radio, television, print and stage, does she have a favourite medium? “It changes – it’s like my favourite kid changes, my favourite media changes. I retreat to write after long times on the road. Writing is the least demanding of all the things I do and the most cathartic, and I’ll probably end up doing that when I become a strange hermit living on a hill. I just say, ‘Do what you love doing and pay the bills any other way, but don’t stop doing what you love doing.’”
SeeDivorce, The Musical!atThe Comedy Store onFriday November 21 and Saturday December 13, tickets online.
