A musical about partying, feeling good, caring and love
Sydney drag queen Tick has managed to persuade her friends Bernadette and Adam to join her on a performance trip to Alice Spins, in the middle of the Australian mainland.
Disco hits resound and more and more spectacular outfits change as a party bus dubbed Priscilla, the queen of the desert, speeds through the remote hinterland.
“This will suck in all the partygoers and cynics as well,” promises director Samuel Harjanne. “It’s been two years so dark now that we have to start letting go.”
However, there will be not only a spectacle with disco music, costumes and glitter dust, but also a heartwarming story about three different friends.
We all belong here
Tick, Bernadette and Adam may be seen as “just” drag queens at first, but along the way, the trio’s different personalities and life stories open up a diverse view of the lives of minorities.
“From the perspective of sexual minorities, it is important that stories like this are told on such a large scale,” Harjanne says.
The youngest of the trio, Adam, is wild, raunchy and thirsty for adventure. Bernadette is an older trans woman and former drag queen who joins in to get over her husband’s death.
Tick carries with him a secret that he reveals to his friends during the trip: A wife and a young son he has never met waiting for him in Alice Spring. Tick fears that the son will not accept his father who deviates from the norm.
“This battle is a very touching part of the story. I completely understand why this character might be afraid of being just some ‘freak’ in the eyes of his son,” Harjanne says.
Together, the protagonists overcome the challenges and prejudices they face, and during the journey, they form a close-knit trio. A group that they consider their own, self-chosen family. Nevertheless, Tick can just as well be a family with his wife and child.
Harjanne considers it important that the musical highlights models that deviate from the traditional concept of family: “Even if you don’t live together or under the norms of society, you can still be a family and belong to one and this whole.”
For Harjanne, the song We Belong, which can be heard at the end of the musical, means that we all belong here, regardless of how we have decided to live our own lives.
“No matter how much we may look like outsiders and behave differently from everyone else, we all belong to this community we call the world. And no one has the right to take it away.”
Update to today
The musical is based on Australian Stephan Elliott’s Oscar-winning classic film Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). In thirty years, many things have progressed, which is taken into account both in the costumes and in the behavior of the characters.
“We try to get our version up to date as much as possible. Humanity and many stereotypes have changed,” Harjanne says.
In films and musical versions around the world, the role of Bernadette has often been played by a man. We see an actress with a trans background, Clarissa Jäärni, in the role.
“I’m really proud of this role. I don’t think there would have been any other way,” Jäärni says.
“Our starting point was that we wanted an actor with a trans background, but we also knew the realities of a small country. In a musical, you have to take into account the skills of singing, dancing and acting and everything else that comes to the role description. Fortunately, we found Clarissa, which is a really good choice,” Harjanne says.
Jäärni is happy to be able to return to the stage after a long break in the role of Bernadette, and the timing could not have been more appropriate.
“This is the perfect antidote to all the general corona anxiety. I believe that
The play will respond to the hunger for life of so many people, because now is the time to live, rejoice and celebrate,” Jäärni says.
Harjanne agrees: “At this point in life, the viewer needs a positive and liberating experience of partying, feeling good, caring and love.”
Text Ida Henritius
Photo: Henriikka Koskenniemi