Year of the Queen: The Making of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - The Musical (2 page)

I did my audition for the producer and I got the job. It was the biggest break I’ve had in my career, setting me up for about ten straight years of work in musical theatre. I also got a wife out of the bargain. In the second incarnation of the show, Annie joined the cast and I instantly fell in love with this unbelievably gorgeous and talented Kiwi. By the third incarnation we were married and were playing husband and wife
as
husband and wife, touring through Australia and New Zealand with the show as a kind of working honeymoon. Not only was it a publicist’s dream come true but it was ours as well.

So now, after helping me into all that, here I am, a squeaking little rodent trying to weasel my way out of Babs’ workshop. I call her and run
Priscilla
past her. She insists I do it, thank God. The one thing you can count on with true bastions of the theatrical world is that they look after each other. She can sniff the potential for me and lets me go like a fairy thistle into the wind.

The year is hurtling towards Christmas. Once the funeral is over, I feel like I can put 2005 back in the rack. Annie, the kids and I are about to head off for a freezing, wet, Melbourne Christmas at Pt. Lonsdale with a lot to like about 2006: a music video to direct, a film to write, and a workshop about drag Queens in the desert.

The patchwork quilt that will be 2006 seems enticing. There are a lot of frayed ends to be tidied and sorted, but I’m liking the design.

Chapter 2

A Toe In The Water

The first workshop, Jan 23
– 1
Feb

Since I’ve been back from holiday I’ve been writing the film script. Ideas bubbled away as we shivered through our freezing days on the beach and the script took shape in my mind. So far it seems to be writing itself. I’ve shot the video clip and have been trying to edit it, but my computer’s not behaving after it was struck by lightning on Christmas Eve. (!!)

As the
Priscilla
workshop approaches I’ve pretty much finished the first draft of the script. I’m not going to send it through to the producer just yet, though. Having the ten days away from it will give me some much-needed perspective, and I certainly don’t want to send her a pile of poop. I’ll pretend that I’m still writing it while I’m away on secondment to
Priscilla
. It’ll make it seem like it’s taken me longer to write. I don’t want the producer to think it was too easy.

There’s been a trickle of gossip coming through about the workshop. The producers are Backrow Productions, a mob from Britain who made their money from Dein Perry’s
Tap Dogs
amongst other things. And Simon Phillips is directing.

Simon is the artistic director of the MTC and is a bit of a scatty genius who famously wears odd socks and no shoes when he’s working. He defies what someone in his position should be like. For a start, you’d imagine someone older, a brooding, remote, theatrical giant - at the very least someone more cut throat. But Simon is boyish and charming, and has got to his position so young by being a rare talent and an ultimately capable wunderkind. He’s Mr Likeable. Every actress in the country has a crush on him. He has the face of a man ten years his junior, though he often wears the fatigue of his long working hours. He’s enthusiastic, generous and hilarious to work with. Simon’s rehearsal periods are famous for being a riot. Amongst the madness though, somehow the work gets done. I’m constantly fascinated by him when we work together because he simultaneously keeps the work progressing but always engenders a cheerful working environment. I first worked with him on
High Society
back in 1993 and then in
Company
in 2000.

Ross Coleman is choreographing. Simon and Ross pretty much come as a team. Ross choreographed
High Society
as well as many more of Simon’s productions. He’s one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. He seems to conjure his choreography from thin air, never having prepared anything before he begins. People heap praise on him, which he shrinks from. Mind you, if he feels overlooked he’ll turn like a cut snake. Where other ‘theatrical’ types are flamboyant, Ross prides himself on being just plain wicked and reprehensible. He delights in recounting extraordinary head spinning tales, just to watch your reaction. He betrays a slightly wicked glint as he tells these stories, just to remind you that the reservoir from which this little tit-bit came is vast enough to completely fry your brain.

Aside from being a wonderful choreographer, he lives to cook. He regularly expounds on his most recent accomplishment with goat or duck and once remarked wearily that his Russian partner, Oleg, had unexpectedly arrived home from the market with a hare, and
what was he to
do
with it!
He lives around the corner from me, and I often bump into him. Late one night I snuck out to get some milk and found Ross and Oleg strolling down the street, glass of shiraz in hand, hunting for some fresh bay leaves to pick for their evening meal.

Annie and I stayed with them in East Berlin when Ross was choreographing at the Friedrichstaadtplast.

When we arrived, Oleg was cooking pork so we nicked off to the bottle shop to stock up for the night. Ross went around grabbing armfuls of liquor, packing them into brown paper bags. Once back at the apartment we started on the vodka and we drank toasts until that bottle ran out. Oleg had been boiling the hock of pork for about two hours at that stage. Then he took it out, and put it into the oven, and we started on the red wine. After the second bottle, Oleg finally pulled the pork out of the oven and began to look like serving it. Hours had passed. Annie and I hadn’t eaten since midday, and it was now eleven thirty at night. The smell of the pork was out of control, but the torture wasn’t over yet. Oleg had to crisp the roasted veggies. That next half hour seemed to drag on for an eternity as I tried to focus through dizzying spells of drunkenness.

Finally the pork was served and I ate it like a mad dog. It was THE most delicious thing I have ever eaten. It was
incredible
.

Now, when Ross talks about the meals he and Oleg create, there’s a part of me that feels like I have hostage syndrome. By the end of that night in East Berlin, it felt like torture having to wait, like some kind of prisoner, for those incredible smells coming from the oven to convert into actual food. When I hear about his latest culinary masterpiece I want to be back in East Berlin, deliriously drunk, wrestling with my desperate hunger, only to be rewarded with culinary perfection. I want to feel that delicious agony again.

Aside from Ross and Simon, the rest of the personnel for the workshop are a complete mystery. On our first morning I call Ross to offer him a lift to the MTC. It’s not quite a selfless act. This way I can drill him for any gossip he might have about the show. When he gets into the car he waves my question away saying no one tells him
anything
. He does know that Spud Murphy is the musical director. He says until the last few days, they didn’t have anyone to fill the job, so Ross called Spud to bring him on board. They’d worked together on
Dusty
and he’s apparently fabulous with musical arrangements.

We enter the cavernous rehearsal room at the MTC. Everything in the room exists on an enormous scale. You push through huge doors to the open expanse of raw floor boards and soaring canvas draped walls. Instantly you feel dusty. The room is centred around a long meeting table which is already groaning with scripts and song books.

A few cast members have already gathered. Nicki Wendt, a blonde bombshell who I’ve worked with many times before, is playing my wife and we piss ourselves laughing when she dryly quips, “Finally, I get to play your wife and you’re a poof!”

Other actors straggle in. John Wood is playing Bob. Spencer McLaren is playing Felicia, the ‘Guy Pearce’ role. Colette Mann and D.J. Foster arrive not knowing who the hell they’re playing.

It’s very exciting. No one has the slightest idea of what we’ll be doing or who is involved, so the surprises keep coming.

Tony Sheldon arrives. He’s playing Bernadette, the ‘Terence Stamp’ role. Tony is a man who can fill a room. People seem to erupt around him like Rotoruan geysers. He’s so loved and it’s easy to see why. When you’re with him he makes you feel like no one else exists in the world. He shines his generous light on you and you seem to grow like Jack’s bean stalk. He still fills me with awe from having seen his astounding performance in
Torch Song Trilogy
twenty years ago. I introduce myself, working on the assumption that he may not remember me. He scoffs at my humility. We have a quick chat and he’s stolen away by someone else eager for his attention.

Spud arrives. He has a no nonsense look about him and seems like he just wants to get cracking.

We assemble around the table and scripts and roles are assigned. Simon introduces everyone by way of gently taking the piss out of them. It’s his way to break the ice. Allan Scott, one of the producers and co-writer of the script is at one end of the table with his female assistant who is gorgeous and half his age. Simon introduces them by telling us that they have travelled from London together to be here, and leans heavily on the assurance that
nothing untoward is going on between them
. Everyone laughs. Stephan Elliot, the writer and director of the film sits conspicuously at the opposite end of the table from Alan. Alan has a great deal of pedigree, having written the notorious film
Don’t Look Now
which won an Oscar, but this doesn’t change the fact that there seems to be an icy breeze blowing between him and Stephan. A story I had heard was that Stephan was reluctant to come on board the project because he didn’t believe it could work on stage.

Stephan also seems to have laboured under the guilt of having stolen several people’s life stories to write
Priscilla
. Sydney has an infamous transsexual named Carlotta, who the character of Bernadette is based on. She apparently feels exploited by the film and that a lot of people became rich and famous by putting her story on screen. There is also a real life Tick who is a drag Queen and a father. Stephan, in his vision for the stage production of
Priscilla
wanted to right these wrongs. Before we begin our read, Simon explains all this to us. He says that the script incorporates a tribute to Carlotta, and that it was her story that was portrayed in the film. Apparently there was talk of her actually playing herself in the show at one stage, but this was quickly abandoned.

Simon explains the origins of the script. Stephan had presented Alan with a draft that depicted a bunch of actors trying to put on a stage version of
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
. Only the ‘behind the scenes’ action would be shown, and none of the story of Priscilla would ever be seen. It was all about the real life actors and characters of the drag subculture in Sydney. I get the feeling Alan had a minor coronary when he read it. He’d been handed a musical about Priscilla without any Priscilla in it. Who’d go to see
that
? Alan then had a crack at the script himself and put some of the film story back into it. Thus, in the second draft, there was a back-story – three actors and a director try to stage the musical of
Priscilla
, and a front story – the actual show,
Priscilla
. Where the two men stand with the current version of the script is not clear, but they don’t appear to be slapping high-fives together.

Stephan remains unconvinced that the show can work on stage. It was a road movie. How do you put that on stage? The producers seem unsure as well, and the goal of this workshop is to have a good rattle of the script and see if there’s anything in this idea that would make a good musical.

We begin the read.

The play begins with a young director pitching a musical based on a famous film to a group of producers. The scene oozes cynicism. I get the feeling that pitching to hard-arsed producers is something Stephan is well familiar with. In the play they tell him he’s wasting his time, it’ll never work. He lists a number of alternatives that could work on stage but the producers reject them. He finally comes up with
Priscilla
and to his delight it’s accepted. The director tracks down the original people that the film is based on, and convinces them to be in the show. They start to rehearse and this is when we see a bit of the
Priscilla
story.

As the script continues, the real life story begins to interweave with the show story. The director turns out to be the estranged real life son of the actor playing Tick. So the actor playing Tick is discovering his son, at the same time as the character Tick is discovering
his
son. Sound complex? Yup! At times, during the read I begin to read a line and have to stop half way through because I just can’t work out which character I’m supposed to be playing. Both my character and my character’s character have sons, and I can’t work out which son is talking to which character.

All the readers are struggling to keep up with what on earth is going on - who is who, and what they are supposed to be playing. Stephan’s mood worsens as the read goes on. He sits through the entire thing with a face like a slapped bum. He looks like he’s going to stand up and scream, “STOP!” It’s incredibly hard to act when you can palpably feel the director of this wonderful film hating every moment of what he’s hearing.

When we finally limp to the end of the read, a deathly silence falls over the table. We slowly look up from our scripts. No one can find words. Stephan stands up stiffly, leans into Simon’s ear, whispers something and then storms out. Simon waits for the huge door to close behind Stephan, before he turns to us and draws a long breath. Finally he says, “I think we should take a break”, and heads towards Alan.

The actors all sit quietly, still stunned. Colette Mann pipes up with a little voice and says, “Was it just me, or was anyone else completely confused?” This opens the flood gates. Suddenly we’re an angry mob, turning on the script. There’s a sense of utter shock amongst us all at how confusing and terrible the script is.