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Barmaids.
 "It's a celebration of those characters in pubs that you don't often see any more, when life in the pub was like a home away from home and everyone knew each other," states actress Genevieve Picot, explaining the premise of 'Barmaids'. She and fellow thespian Valerie Bader play two mature barmaids in an Australian port-side pub that's in the process of being upgraded. "People were regulars and the barmaids knew you and you could get pissed and occasionally misbehave. It's a celebration of those kinds of old-fashioned pubs.
"The 'seventies and late 'eighties were when these types of pubs existed," Picot further explains. "The one that this play is set in is very much a blue-collar, working-class pub: a wharfie's pub, so it's very male dominated. The behaviour can get pretty rough at times, but by the end of the night the audience feels like they're actually in the bar and having a good time with us." As part of The Arms Hotel's new-millennium revamp the characters, Val (Picot) and Nancy (Bader), not only have to endure the modernised decor and "accommodate" their workplace's younger clientele service-wise - including karaoke (which does require some audience participation) and high-priced fancy cocktails - but also have to see their positions gradually taken over by topless bar staff. Not only are we made privy to the lives of many of the blokes who have been frequenting the pub for years, but audiences are also allowed a reserved glimpse into the personal lives of the two principles. "Valerie's character is one of those perennial fun-loving, gorgeous women that slips from man to man," says Picot, "but in the play this is the first time that a man has actually dropped her and that's a big change in her life. She's having a pretty tough journey, whereas my character starts out, in terms of her personal freedom, as an extremely constrained and uptight woman but by the end of the play she's loosened up a bit, she's having more fun, so there's also that kind of journey. We're looking at it from a female point of view, and we do have a bit of a go at the blokes but we also reveal our own vulnerable side as well as the good heartedness of some of the blokes too. There was a sort of surrogate family relationship between a lot of the regulars and the barmaids that lasted in some cases for twenty to thirty years."
This long-term relationship is reflected in the play's structure. "Compared to your modern plays now, where they're usually done without an interval and are over within an hour and a half, this actually takes about two and a half hours, depending on how much fun the audience has. I mean, some nights they laugh so much and have such a good time with the karaoke it can take two and three-quarter hours because they really get involved. So there is a bit of lee-way depending on how much fun the audience is having." Does this suggest that there's also a certain measure of improvisation required by the gals? "To a degree," Picot allows. "Katherine Thomson has actually written a very clever way of involving the audience and has already scripted a fair bit of that in, but of course there has to be a little bit of improvisation depending of the audience's reactions. Valerie's very good at that, and she's taught me a few tricks so I'm getting better at it."
What kind of audience does the play appeal to? "We've had some crowds that were a real mix, young and old," she deduces. "The young audiences seem to enjoy it as much but the oldies definitely recognise that type of pub and those people and that type of behaviour so they get a huge laugh out of it. The thing that's really nice about this play is that you get a genuine response from the male theatregoers who often accompany their wives. They don't expect to have a good night out, and they really enjoy it."
Steve Jones
 | The Adelaide Festival Centre and HIT Productions present 'Barmaids' at Her Majestys Theatre until Sat 30 July. |
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