Interview: Natalie Palamides

Six years after her last solo show, Natalie Palamides is back at the Fringe with a 75-minute version of WEER, performing at the Traverse Theatre for the first time. “I wanted a venue that is known for doing more theatrical pieces,” she says. “I like the conceit of that. That the show is maybe a little bit of a dramatic piece. But it’s really not.”

Described as a tragic love story between two star-crossed lovers, WEER takes place on New Year’s Eve 1999, with Palamides using a lot of tropes from rom coms and rom dramas of the 90s. “I think it's fun to subvert those tropes that you see time and time again,” she says. “It's fun to utilise that as a device, because when you give people something familiar, it's very easy to take them to a new place."

The idea of exploring a toxic relationship came from bingeing romantic content on screen. “It’s embarrassing,” she admits, “but I pretty much exclusively watch romance; either romantic dramas, romantic comedies or romantic reality competition shows. Probably because it's severely lacking in my own life, so it's like I can get a taste of it through these other people's experiences. It's just such an interesting part of the human experience to witness people falling in and out of love."

As with her previous live shows, the creative process started with a 10-minute set that she’s worked into an hour through improvisation, without writing anything down. Many of her clown friends, like Courtney Pauroso and Bill O'Neill, operate from this place, which makes it easy to collaborate. “I don’t think any of us have scripts for our shows,” she says. “It sounds so wanky to say but it's like playing jazz. How do jazz musicians play with one another when they don't know what's gonna happen? Or any improvisers, really?”

When she develops a show, her aim is to make people laugh and take them on an emotional journey rather than convey a message. “Something that is fun for me is to shock people,” she says. “I like to confront people with expressions of vulnerability that they're not used to. And I love to pull the rug out from underneath people... I’m exploring all these different points of view and the truth is what that audience member takes away from it so it can have many different messages, depending on who is receiving it."

Photo by Jill Petracek

She’s known for pushing boundaries in her previous shows, Nate and Laid, finding out where the line is through trial and error. “Whenever I was workshopping the drunk sex in [Nate], the first time I tried it, I was very trepid or timid,” she admits. “But that's also part of the reason why I thought – I need to do this. Because if I'm scared, it means there's something worth exploring there. I just try to approach it as sensitively as I can.”

As an artist, she likes to do things on stage that feel risky, although WEER is a slight departure from her earlier shows. “I think it's probably one of the most palatable pieces I've created in terms of comfortability with the audience,” she says. “I think maybe this show will attract a wider audience than some of my other pieces, because the element of discomfort isn't as present as much in this show as it has been in Nate or Laid... This is the first show that my parents seem to like. But they are not aware of any nudity in it, and the show is not in its finished state.”

At the time of our conversation, she’s still undecided as to whether she should explain the title of WEER. “There’s one really bad joke in the show that is so superfluous and unnecessary to include,” she says, “but kind of makes the title of the show make sense. And I'm trying to decide if that is important. I don't think it is and my late great friend Adam Brace would have told me that it was a barnacle and I need to cut it. We’ll see if the barnacle stays.”

She’s generous with her praise for other artists and is pleased to have more free time at this year’s Fringe to see performers such as Piotr Sikora's Furiozo. The artists she most admires are those that can “bounce the audience back and forth between two tones,” she says. “I think I’m drawn to performers who do over-the-top characters that are still able to be really vulnerable and you're still able to see the humanity in their characters even though they're super silly.”

Looking to the future, she’d love to bring physical comedy back into television. "I just think a multi-cam sitcom with a live audience is a perfect outlet for clowns," she says, “because part of clowning is knowing that the audience is always there with you.” She has also fallen in love with directing and enjoyed working with Bill O’Neill in The Amazing Banana Brothers last year. In WEER, she’s going one step further by directing herself. “It could be the biggest mistake in my life,” she says. “But I really wanted to do it as a challenge to myself and as a fun exercise. And why are we making these weird plays if not to challenge ourselves and test our limits and explore all these different facets of our minds?”