Panti Bliss and Tara Flynn are in conversation with each other and talking about making their new one-woman shows with THISISPOPBABY and finding similarities between each other's work as they premiere a new double bill of perfomances at the Abbey Theatre on the Peacock Stage this November...
TARA: So, I've hardly seen you this week cause were rehearsing simultaneously here at the Dean Art Studios in Dublin.
PANTI: Yes, its weird, were like mirror images of each other. You’ll be working on the text in the upstairs room while im running text and blocking the show in the downstairs room with Phillip (McMahon, Director) and then we switch throughout the day. Now, we have slightly different backgrounds but there are a lot of things in common between the drag scene and the comedy scene, why did you decide to move to theatre?
TARA: Well, I actually started in theatre, that was what I always wanted to do and then I gradually moved in to the comedy space so that I could work more frequently. My dream would have been to be giving Hedda around Europe. So, I see exactly what you mean in that there was no real career to be had from the things we were doing certainly not guaranteed so we were doing gigs because we loved them and 'cause that is what was happening. So it’s the other way around, I’m coming home really!
And what about you? Is it strange to move from something so anarchic and something were you have total control to theatre where you have a director and more defined structure?
PANTI: No, for me I need the discipline and structure because I can be a bit all over the place. It’s good for me to have people tell me to ‘Sit down and do this and then later this is what we will do’. That works well for me.
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Listen: Rory 'Panti' O'Neill & Tara Flynn talk to Brendan O'Connor
TARA: Do you secretly enjoy it?
PANTI: Yes, because I feel productive – it helps me to be productive.
I came from the drag world and the one thing that drew me to the theatre world is you know, night club performing is super fun and I loved every minute of it, but it’s also quit limiting because everything has to be done in very broad brush strokes – big and loud – you are fighting for the audience’s attention, whereas in the theatre you have their undivided attention...
TARA: Because they’re facing you!
PANTI: Yeah and there are rules to the theatre – the light is on you. In the theatre you can do a very small thing and it will register with the audience. So to me that is very enjoyable.
TARA: I found it quite interesting that even though we didn’t come together and discuss the themes or subjects we would like to include in our shows that somehow there is a lot of crossover and commonality between them. Things about the stage of our lives that we are at, about our dads and about usefulness in the world.
PANTI: Yes.
TARA: I wonder would every performer at this age come up with these sort of things, is it a symptom of where we’re at or do you think you and I in particular with those semi similar backgrounds, do you think that has lead to it?
PANTI: It is remarkable how many of the themes in both of our shows chime with each other, yes you could put that down to the fact that we are around the same age, we’re both culchies and we have both just come through this weird period of the pandemic, which I think made everybody reassess their place in the world, and although the pandemic is not directly addressed in either of our shows, I think that question of your place and purpose has bubbled up in both shows on its own, as the kids would say, it’s spooky.
TARA: I love to play with the spooky.
PANTI: Is it more fun or more stressful doing this double act/show that we’re doing?
TARA: I am loving it, I love the constant change of energy throughout the day, with a one woman show your head never gets a rest.
PANTI: Yes, I agree, I always find it weird coming off the stage after a one-woman show and it’s me in the dressing room, having worked on a group show before the pandemic I really enjoyed the comradery backstage after the show.
TARA: To finish up, a lot of people would know us for activism or as you said accidental activism, but isn’t it nice to be back to doing what we do which is being big silly clowns?
PANTI: Yes, even if some of that boring activism stuff has seeped in to the shows!
Panti Bliss premieres her one woman show If These Wigs Talk and Tara Flynn also premieres her one woman show Haunted (both staged as double bill showings) at the Abbey Theatre on the Peacock stage from Nov 11th - Dec 3rd - find out more here.
