While searching for the reincarnation of her favourite lover, Adonis, the Goddess of love Aphrodite returns to Earth only to find it in a sad and sorry state. With the help of four other powerful goddesses­—Persephone, Goddess of the Underworld, Diana, Goddess of the Hunt and Moon, Morrigan, Goddess of Vengeance, and Quan Yin, Goddess of Compassion—Aphrodite aims to heal our wounds and restore the natural balance of masculine and feminine.

Conversations With Goddesses is written and performed by ex-Adelaide girl and veteran cabaret performer Louise McCabe, who plays all five of the major goddesses.

“The musical accompaniment in the show is performed by Aaron Nash and I also have two minor goddesses joining me on stage,” McCabe explains. “Newcomers Bianca Sheedy plays Visa, the Goddess of Abundance, and Caetlyn Collins as performs Cafeteria, the Goddess of Inexpensive Dining.”

They’re very impressive names you’ve come up with there.

“I had a whole bunch of names,” she chuckles, “including Hysteria, the Goddess of PMS and Facilitatia, the Goddess of Workshops—because I live in Byron Bay and everyone does workshops here— but eventually I settled on those two.

“I originally wrote Conversations With Goddesses because I had my heart broken and needed something to do with all of this love and pain. I couldn’t look at another man until I dealt with all of those feelings so I put it into art and a live show.

“I was quite depressed at the time,” McCabe says, “and I was reading about Goddesses and Archetypes and how the Greek Goddess Persephone descends into hell, and how she comes out again as a wise woman—which is a metaphor for depression, something a lot of women go through.

“Persephone was actually kidnapped from her mother and seduced by Hades, who was a bad man. She goes from being the perfect beautiful daughter to suddenly being controlled by this man from hell. Eventually she finds her own voice and becomes the Goddess of the Underworld and helps people on their journey.

“I thought that all of that was very interesting, but how to put that into a show,” she ponders. “The first couple of drafts were really heavy so I turned it into a cabaret where Aphrodite can be the star; she’s back on Earth, looking for a man because that’s what she does. She’s trying to find her Adonis who has died and left her and she needs to find him again.

“But once she comes to Earth, Aphrodite realises she is mortal and has learned nothing, and needs help on her own journey. So she brings all the other Goddesses back with her and each of them have a gift to give to Earth.”

How did you go about making the show more light hearted?

“I found the humour in all of them because the great thing about the Goddesses is that they were basically reflections of humans and weren’t that serious about the Gods. Gods do all the awful stuff like sleeping with each other, killing people, torturing and raping and all sorts of awful things.

“The Goddesses have all got their foibles; Aphrodite is vain and is quite ruthless in her pursuit for love. Morrigan swears all the time and curses people in her thick Irish accent. Diana is a party animal and a disco freak. But I just found stuff that was amusing, and, in trying to make it as contemporary as possible, they each make comments on what is going on right now in the world.”

Playing each of the Goddesses, how to you make costume changes a smooth transition?

“There’s a big audio visual element to the show so sometimes the lesser-known Goddesses will do something, but quite often the story of the Goddesses will come up on the screen between acts—narrated with tongue-in-cheek by Aphrodite,” McCabe replies. “She’s all a bit ‘Sit down, kids, I’m going to tell you a fairy tale’ kind of thing, so it’s very palatable and you don’t need to know anything about the Gods or Goddesses to enjoy and understand the show.

“A lot of women tell me they feel so much better and more enlightened after the show. Men love it too; there’s lots of belly dancing to make them happy. It’s a very pretty show to watch as well as being funny; so something for everyone.”

McCabe talks about the painting by Adelaide artist Cat Leonard that is situated in the foyer of The Big Slapple.

“It’s called Where For Art Thou, Adonis? The painting is based on a beautiful photo shoot that we did of Aphrodite as she rides out into the ocean,” she explains. “I find collaborations with other artists really exciting. We’ve worked with photographers, choreographers, audio visual guy doing the effects for us. A friend even taught me sign artistry because Persephone does a whole dance based on Auslan but more theatrical, which is really beautiful.”

Who: Louise McCabe
What: Conversations With Goddesses
Where: The Big Slapple – 48 Lounge
When: Thu Feb 27 until Sun Mar 2

WHAT

Conversations With Goddesses

WHERE

The Big Slapple – 48 Lounge

WHEN

until Sun Mar 2