Robyn Archer to perform at Griffin Theatre

Robyn Archer will perform three political cabarets at Griffin. (Supplied image by Claudio Raschella)

By Elissa Blake 

Robyn Archer is not a sentimental performer. For her, cabaret is not the art of making the audience laugh a little, cry a little. Cabaret, she says, is political. It’s the art of making people think.

“The idea that the cabaret performer exists only to stand on a stage and say ‘love me, love me’, is not the kind of performance I’ve ever ascribed to,” Archer says. “For me, performing is never about being loved. It’s not about me and my emotions, it’s about the story I’m telling you. If someone in your audience cries it is important they are not crying because you have aped crying on stage. They should be crying because you have effectively told them a deeply moving story.”

Archer is speaking ahead of a series of intimate solo cabarets to be staged at Griffin.

The stories she plans to tell will be tales of bastardry, corruption, transgression and protestation sorted into three separate shows: Que Reste T’il (What Remains?), Dancing on the Volcano, and The (Other) Great American Songbook.

In Que Reste T’il, Archer explores the archive of French language song via Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet and Jacques Brel. In Volcano, her focus is on the German canon, in particular the work of Berthold Brecht, Kurt Weill and Friedrich Hollaender. The (Other) Great American Songbook surveys a spectrum of music that takes the listener from Broadway, to the folk clubs of the Village, and into the world of contemporary stars such as Pink.

“My gut feeling is I wouldn’t be singing these songs unless they still had some contemporary relevance,” says Archer. “Many have a chilling relevance.”

These cabarets mark a return to the Sydney stage for Archer, who became internationally acclaimed for her solo shows in the late 1970s, such as Kold Komfort Kafe, A Star is Torn and 1981’s The Pack of Women.

She regards herself as a singer above all else, and continues to perform regularly, but Archer is also one of Australia’s most experienced arts festival directors, having helmed the Adelaide Festival, Hobart’s Ten Days on the Island, and the Melbourne Festival. She is currently Strategic Advisor for Arts and Culture on the Gold Coast, the hosting city of the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

Now in her late 60s, Archer finds herself “living out of a suitcase” more than she anticipated she would be at this time in her life.

“I live in Adelaide, it’s where I was born and until recently, where my parents lived, and all my cousins and their kids there,” she says. “But I’m lucky if I get more than five nights a month at home. At least half my time now is spent up on the Gold Coast.”

The high-rise, sun-struck, surf beach city isn’t exactly synonymous with arts and culture, Archer admits. Her job, ahead of the Games, is to turn that perception around.

“At first, I was a bit like, ‘what culture?’” Archer says. “Even three years ago, the Gold Coast was a bit of a wilderness. Artists felt they had to go to Brisbane, if not to Sydney, in order to make any kind of living.”

The coast lifestyle is not conducive to regular arts programming, Archer says. “The sun is up at 4am and people get up and exercise. After work or picking up the kids from school they go surfing or walking or swimming. Then it’s an early dinner, early to bed, then wake up early and do it all over again. Trying to get Gold Coast people into a darkened theatre at 8pm for two hours would be flogging a dead horse, absurd.”

With arts a distant second to surf conditions on the Coast, Archer was forced to question the value of culture and her own assumptions about its centrality to a life well lived.

“You can’t say to anyone your life is not as good as mine because you don’t have art in it,” Archer says. “When I’m on the Gold Coast I see people living rich, happy, fulfilled lives. It’s led to some really interesting questions to myself about my values.”

One of Archer’s strategies is to put culture where the people are. “There will be a lot of stuff happening at the beach and in the hinterland. The trick is to do it without dumbing down the content,” she says. “Outdoor programming shouldn’t be the cheap or easy option. I want the same levels of excellence you would experience anywhere else.”

Archer is also planning to create a cultural hub for a community living along the Coast’s 90km of coastline. “I’m imagining something like [Melbourne’s] Federation Square. Whether it’s to celebrate or protest, it’s the place you go.”

By contrast, Archer will experience no issues drawing a crowd to Griffin. Sydney holds her in high esteem. Is she nervous about making what many will see as a comeback?

“There is a huge amount to get right or wrong in this,” Archer says. “If I get 70 per cent of it right on any night I’ll be very happy. The constant challenge and joy in this repertoire for me is that it ain’t easy. You keep aiming for higher percentages every time you do it.”

Archer will sing her French and German songs in English translation for the most part. That, she says, is a legacy of her friendship with the British scholar and translator John Willett.

They met in Adelaide when Willett was working as dramaturg on a Wal Cherry-directed production of Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. “He would turn in his grave if I called him a mentor,” Archer says. “He was a mate as well as a mentor. He taught me so much just by the way he conducted himself morally and ethically.

“Being around him was my education and it was something I don’t think I got from my parents,” Archer says. “Mum and dad were fabulous and I loved them, but they never went to the lengths that John did to make sure I didn’t turn into an arsehole.”

Willett insisted the Brecht repertoire be sung in the language of its audience, Archer says. “You get performers who do it in German and put this sentimental, sex siren overlay on it. But then people don’t understand the words. You end up with this jazzy, gorgeous, nostalgic thing but nothing from the lyrics. Above everything else, the audience must understand what you are singing about.”

Robyn Archer performs at the Griffin Theatre, Kings Cross, July 4-15, 2017.

This story was first published in The Sydney Morning Herald on July 1, 2017.

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