Robyn Archer is at present performing in her successful one woman show A Star is Torn at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. She is well known in her native Australia and in London as a brilliant performer of feminist cabaret and a fine singer of Brecht's songs. In A Star is Torn Robyn Archer throws new light on the lives of some of the great popular female entertainers of this century by looking at the conflicting pressures of being both successful stars and having to conform to narrowly defined female roles. Shelley Charlesworth talked to her
SC: You are known in this country as a feminist and a socialist performer and presumably you became radicalised in the sixties in Australia. How did this happen?
RA: It's a little hard to answer but I think it is always much easier for someone from a poor background to be much more attuned to the deprivations that are going on around them, I only got to University by sheer accident — I was so sick as a child that my parents couldn't afford to have any more children after paying the doctor's bills. I would have been very different if I hadn't gone to University because I suppose that University did radicalise me. We were in the middle of the Vietnam war then and there were tens of thousands of Australian troops there. It wasn't only that we were in there and losing forces but that we were so much closer to Vietnam than America. It was then that my radicalisation became focussed and articulated. Feminism didn't come until a few years after that, in '70 and '71, I wasn't terribly active but I was involved as a singer. — when I left University and I was invited by the Returned Soldiers and Sailors League to go and entertain the troops I [illegible] because the ASIO, which is the Australian equivalent of the CIA, had pictures of me on file singing at Vietnam moratoriums And even before that when I started to sing folk music in '62 and '63 it was right at the heart of the American Black Rights Movement, so my first models were Joan Baez and Bob Dylan — it was an early association with defined music and big protest movements. And when you start to look at the reasons for these protest movements, if you haven't had a comfortable upbringing then it is quite easy to generalise out,
SC: So you were attracted to folk music because it was a music of protest in the early sixties?
RA: Yes, although my background was more that of showbusiness — my father was a singer and comedian so that was the natural background. But I am not too sure what it is that leads you into that first time when you think a song that says something about people having a hard time is better than a song which says forget your troubles — here's true love and romance
SC: You worked for a time as a singer in Sydney nightclubs after leaving University?
RA: [illegible] entertainment. I tended to choose odd standards from way back and to whip out the ukelele. But found that while I was starting to earn [illegible] more money and [illegible] break into the Sydney scene — that the more successful I became the less I liked it, Eventually [illegible] singing and went back to Adelaide to do teacher training.
SC: It was after that that you became interested in Brecht. Where did that come from?
RA: I was drifting back into singing, teaching [illegible] along came Brecht. The Opera Company (The State Opera of South Australia) were doing Brecht's Seven Deadly Sins to open The Space in the Adelaide Festival Centre, and a friend asked me if I'd like a crack at it. It was a great challenge for me and I saw for the first time singers trained in a formal way. I had [illegible] before I had [illegible] thought about training as a singer, I had thought [illegible] intuitive showbiz or [illegible] folksinging
SC: What about [illegible] Were you excited by [illegible]
RA: Extraordinarily — but that came later. I did the Seven Deadly Sins and toured it, then a year after I was offered a 3-month contract with the Adelaide Opera Company and that's when I decided to dice teaching. I was offered a part in The Threepenny Opera and they then suggested I do a tour of the songs from it around factories. During rehearsals for The Threepenny Opera I met John Willett — he started to tell me about Hans Eisler — he gave me Brecht's poems. It was then that I thought, here is this perfect synthesis of what I regard as showbusiness in Brecht, and politics. And politics of an extraordinarily humane kind which is why I've stuck with it, I think. What I find about Brecht is that he doesn't give party line dogma but really looks at the shortcomings of everybody he allows things to be seen as they are and then he allows the audience the choice by observing ordinary people in those situations. Why I think Brecht has failed on so many counts in English-speaking countries is because it's been taken as an intellectual medium and people have tended to neglect it as showbiz.
It was when I first went to the Berliner Ensemble and saw their production of 'Can't Pay, Won't Pay' that it was just amazing — they played it for laughs, it was broad farce. My meeting with Brecht was totally accidental but it allowed me for the first time in my life to combine the academic with showbiz.
SC: There are very few successful political performers around. Do you think this leads to problems of being seen as a figurehead — a sort of authority on feminist entertainment?
RA: Yes, but that is partly because I can never quite understand people's fascination with entertainers — for instance for a magazine like yours to be interviewing me — this is something that I would like to study in more depth. But I quite often get rather embarrassed about it.
SC: Do you regard A Star is Torn as a feminist show?
RA: It is not a feminist show but on the other hand I can get onto the radio or TV and talk about the show and this leads to a discussion of feminism. it's a huge springboard because they always ask you. I see A Star is Torn as a nice night's entertainment springing from a feminist consciousness rather than a non feminist consciousness. Similarly my reputation as an entertainer with politics means that many of the things I do spring out of a social and political consciousness, I am always aware of having it whereas many performers seem to be able to ignore it very easily.
SC: Has this led to any major problems for you as a performer?
RA: No, not yet, When I made the decision to come back into singing at the age of 26 I came into it knowing that I could give it up at any time and that I would never compromise on anything because it simply wasn't worth it, I had seen what a horrible business it was but it seemed to me worthwhile almost as a teacher to pursue it. Here I can spring a few more thoughts to a whole lot more people if I go outside of school — here is this perfect vehicle and I can use it.
SC: You don't feel you have to censor yourself or compromise your material?
RA: I haven't yet. For instance what I think about A Star is Torn is that it does sow seeds of discontent. It is a look at a group of women who previously have just been looked on in a foolish and idolatrous way which just keeps the myths going — there's only been two things that this idolatry has said: either 'poor vulnerable darlings' or 'they were a group of lushes who should have looked after themselves better', For the first time in A Star is Torn we are saying 'yes they were fantastic' and 'yes they were no angels, any of them, but the forces that came to bear on them were enormous ...'
SC: And how would you describe these forces?
RA: Well, first and foremost I do think it is a very serious feminist issue. These women who from an early age were told by their mothers, by managers, lovers, husbands and by more managers that they had to go out and be successful and they knew that to do that they would have to be very aggressive. Before this wave of feminism a woman was always taught to be passive — it's as simple as that, Now all of these women, like Garland and Monroe to some extent, inside, believed in that ideal, I am sure of it. So what you have is a situation in which they were singing all these songs about love and romance and everybody believed that they were singing about themselves. Whereas I think they were thinking inside that they were failing for not being the perfect wife and mother. Take Judy Garland: from twelve years old she was fed amphetamines to get up and go to work in the morning. Nobody said at the time: 'Judy you are going to be the biggest popular entertainer this century has ever seen, if you take these pills in the morning and get up then you don't have to worry about family life or anything, you have got a different life to lead.' But no one said it and I think that is the central reason for their destruction. I defy anyone to put up with that kind of schizophrenia. And we are not just talking about any old entertainer in A Star is Torn — we are talking about the Monroes, the Garlands, the Piafs, who could not walk outside their doors without being mobbed — there haven't been too many of those women who were that adored. Marie Lloyd is a classic example, At the same time they are being failed time and time again by what was supposed to be the real love in their lives — their men. They were constantly ripped off by men who invariably became their managers, who took over financial matters — almost all of them had a husband or a lover who ran up immense debts. And all of them got into that situation where the only place they felt safe, loved and adored was on the stage. But when they came off it was just one bummer after another personally. That must be a funny thing to feel.
SC: You obviously feel completely different because you are living in a different time and you are aware of these pressures.
RA: That's the main thing. Also I am extremely sceptical about the business and I don't actually believe pop songs. I really think they are dangerous things in terms of human relationships. That is why political theatre is important to me. I can be a performer but whinge about the rest of entertainment at the same time. I think pop seduces and distracts people from the real issues.
Robyn Archer will be publishing a book about A Star is Torn with Virago in 1984, Robyn Archer Sings Brecht is available from EMI records.