The View From My Window: Cabaret star Meow Meow on sex, danger and the theatre

Cabaret star Meow Meow.

I’m trying to think of my favourite view. A mirror is a beautiful window of the soul. Looking straight into my own eyes is an exhilarating and sometimes horrifying journey.

But the place I feel most magically full of potential is in an old theatre. I love that quiet time before the audience is in or it’s really late at night and the orchestra has gone home. It’s an empty auditorium and you sit there and look up at the beautiful stage. I love that.

Yes, the theatre view is my favourite. Standing on stage. Looking at something where you can feel the history. When you can feel the ghosts of the people who’ve been before you and all the performances. How does it get remembered? Through the sweat of the costumes and the creaks of the floorboard. I love that theatres have the sweat of the hard work as well as the magic and I think about the interesting souls that have been in and out of those buildings. I love an old theatre.

I’m a stage creature. I love thinking, “Oh, I’m in the theatre where Sarah Bernhardt apparently hurt her knee and this is one way Marlene Dietrich walked in and immediately cleaned the dressing room.”

A part of me worries about the loss of those histories. I often joke on stage, “Come into the sacred space,” but I do feel it is a sacred space because of its transience. You have ecstatic experiences that stay in the minds of the people who see it. But it’s not recorded in that way of film or a book. It is absolutely this magic frisson. I really love that feeling. It feels both safe and dangerous. It’s not that I’m driven to be dangerous. I just follow my instincts. And sometimes they lead me to precarious places.

But it’s always interesting, whatever happens. I always seem to be in some kind of physical peril because I find it makes people realise we’re not in television. My legs go everywhere. What’s a girl to do with such magnificent showbiz legs? It’s a shame to waste them under a frock.

So, the material becomes dangerous. And that changes depending on which country I’m singing in, what’s viewed as edgy or what isn’t? What’s viewed as political or what isn’t? It’s quite fascinating. We’re in such unbelievable times of censorship between extreme right censorship and woke censorship. The very act of opening one’s mouth becomes political. I like material that’s ambiguous so people can find the spaces within to make it resonate with them.

That’s why I like a lot of what would be considered historical 1920s music. It seems every time I’m singing, I think these songs couldn’t be more relevant. Oh my God, they’re horrifyingly relevant. There are songs from the 30s about abortion. It’s nearly 100 years and it could be a political rally song from now. The music still moves people. It’s that perfect combo of emotion and text that resonates in a different way.

In the great feminism, pro-pornography/anti-pornography wars in America in the 80s, there was a great phrase that said, “What turns me on is erotic and what turns you on is pornographic.” I thought that was so good. We all think what we like is fine, somehow classy, but what others like we’re fearful or judgmental of. I don’t want to say it’s not sexy, the show, but you can’t control what’s going to be seen as sexy. Some people will find it sexy. Some people will just find it ridiculous. I hope that it’s all things. That’s the subjectivity that we all have to remember that we have and be kinder to each other. I don’t know how it is in New Zealand at the minute, but certainly, I feel the great fear in America.

When you’ve got a non-narrative piece like my show, a fantastic mix of music that’s really celebratory, it means there’s a lot of play on stage. It’s funny and also beautiful. It’s very liberating. It gives space for everyone to be an individual as well as be together. There’s a real sense of playfulness. That’s important because it shows that diversity comes in many forms. We have to open up spaces to bring people with us, not just make people feel ashamed or ostracised. We want to open up play, not shut it down. Sometimes I see the news and I have to check the date; “Is this now or 30 years ago?”

I love history and how people dealt with all sorts of political and personal crises and how that must manifest itself in art. I believe strongly that music is the quick way to connection. I feel we have this power with music and we don’t use it enough. We need to use it for the good.

As told to Karl Puschmann.

Meow Meow is appearing at the Aotearoa Festival of the Arts. She will perform her show Pandemonium with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre on February 24.