Just wild about Paul Capsis

August 31, 2004

Out of the box: Paul Capsis will perform his "biggest shows ever" this weekend.
Picture:Roger Cummins

Paul Capsis is more cult than mainstream, but this weekend he plans to fill Her Majesty's, writes Marcella Bidinost.

The last time Melburnians saw Paul Capsis perform was in a packed season of gigs at last year's Melbourne Festival. There he was, scaling gospel to the blues, Bowie to Bacharach, and channelling the spirit of tragic yet transcendent divas from decades past (Dietrich, Joplin, Garland, Holiday).

Wowing the audience with his near-castrato voice and still glowing from sell-out performances at the Sydney Opera House and Edinburgh Festival, Capsis' cabaret twisted intensity with levity.

Those Famous Spiegeltent shows had him musing on playing bigger venues, to bigger audiences, for an all-round bigger Capsis experience.

"A bit daunting, but a dream no less," says the grinning 40-year-old, whose star has shone consistently in Australian cabaret since he left the travel industry 10 years ago.

An AFI, a Green Room and a Robert Helpmann award later - plus return seasons in Vienna of his Barrie Kosky-directed one-man show Boulevard Delirium and a song at Russell Crowe's wedding - the Sydney-sider is warming up for what he claims are his biggest shows ever: two gigs with a 30-piece orchestra at Melbourne's Her Majesty's - just 1620 seats to fill each night.

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Given his award-winning performance as a drag queen in the 1998 film Head On, Capsis knows he's more cult than mainstream. But that doesn't stop the big-gig gamble, instigated by producer Rod Scanlon who was inspired by Capsis' Spiegeltent gigs.

"Yes, I'm difficult to box," says Capsis. "A lot of people don't know quite what to make of me, but it doesn't make me give up."

He is tired of producers sacrificing merit and spirit for box-office success: "We're learning more and more that safe choices don't work. People are sick of being duped. When they go to the theatre, they want quality; to see things that make them feel something.

"I feel the pressure of the work, but I dedicate to it entirely, or I can't do it. It has to be stirring; it has to push me and it has to excite."

Capsis acknowledges Australia is a difficult place to be an artist but, despite international offers, he refuses to abandon life here.

"I've been approached about living in London and I'm well aware of Europe's rich culture, but I've made things work in Australia for a long time. I know this culture, I know how people work and I know how good it can be. I'm stubborn, but I refuse to accept what we're supposed to believe about ourselves as artists in this country. If anything, being overseas gives me the incentive to come back to my culture and help broaden it."

While Capsis' list of collaborators reads like a Who's Who of Australian performance - Geoffrey Rush, Baz Luhrmann, Toni Collette, Michael Kantor, Jim Sharman, Barry Otto, Max Cullen - his own shows are propelled by Australia's brightest young, musical talent.

Jazz piano prodigy Aron Ottignon, 21, has accompanied Capsis since he was 18. Last year's young Australian jazz artist of the year, Ottignon is the same wunderkind who, at the age of 11, became New Zealand's most outstanding jazz musician under 25. For the Her Majesty's shows, 23-year-old composer Nicholas Buc - "he does wonderful cinematic, epic music" - is also on board as musical director.

With Capsis' new shows comes his first CD, a collection of live recordings produced under Tim Freedman's (The Whitlams) co-owned label, Black Yak Records.

"I kept running into Tim at music festivals. He'd say to me, 'What's with you not having a record?'." So make one he did.

"I never thought I'd enjoy sitting there editing with machines all day, but what surprised me more than anything was the audience on those recordings. It was wild. It's all very wild."

Paul Capsis performs at Her Majesty's on September 3 and 4. A percentage of the proceeds from the first concert will go to the Victorian AIDS Council, marking its 21st anniversary.