2 days ago
Spirit of rock legend Chrissy Amphlett channelled in Rising cabaret Amplified
As frontwoman of Australian rock group Divinyls, formed in Sydney in 1980 with guitarist Mark McEntee, Chrissy Amphlett was renowned for her powerful stage charisma.
Her thick, bright red hair; short, black-and-white sailor tunic with suspender belt and fishnets; her "Monster Schoolgirl" persona and sexually provocative stage-writhing, are legendary. And her music is still incredibly powerful.
"When you're in the centre of those songs and they're a wall of rage, it feels mythically enormous," says Sheridan Harbridge, who performs in Amplified: the Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett, as part of Melbourne's Rising festival.
The word that keeps coming up as I talk about Amphlett with Harbridge and the show's director, Sarah Goodes, is "electric".
"People who I've spoken to, her friends and people who saw her, they really describe her as conjuring an electricity that just gripped the room," Harbridge says.
"There were no women in rock doing what she did at the time. She was getting up there and giving sex, passion and rock'n'roll, any way she wanted to. With no rules of pandering for men or pandering for women."
Amplified, a cabaret, brings to life Amphlett's story through her music.
Goodes is quick to point out that the rockstar contained multitudes, beyond her on-stage, rage-filled persona. "At the time you had to pre-empt it, you know. To avoid being eaten alive, you had to kill first," Goodes says.
The show aims to let all Amphlett's contradictions — of rage, vulnerability and anger — "shimmer in the air together", Goodes says.
Harbridge is drawn to telling stories of the women society has labelled "disobedient".
"As a writer, it's always been my sort of manifesto … making sure that their story is on the record."
Amphlett rejected feminist ideas prevalent in the late 1970s and early 80s, that dismissed overt sexuality as pandering to a male gaze.
"Chrissy was like, 'I don't need to follow any of these rules,'" Harbridge says. "That was her punk."
"It's that ancient [contradiction of] women being too sexual or not sexual enough," Goodes says.
"It's this impossible shadow-boxing with what it means to be a woman. And she just burst through it and roared. Everyone just shut up and loved it and embraced it."
The idea for a one-woman show about Amphlett's life was conceived by Amphlett herself.
She'd been working on the idea before she died of breast cancer in 2013. It was Amphlett's longtime friend Simon Morley (of Puppetry of the Penis fame) who brought the idea to Goodes, back in 2018.
COVID delays pushed the project back but, eventually, Morley asked Goodes to direct. She was interested, on one condition. "If I can do it with Sheridan," Goodes says.
"I couldn't really imagine anyone else who can traverse that tightrope between rock'n'roll and theatre.
"You don't want someone impersonating Chrissy," Goodes says.
"What [Sheridan is] able to do is channel the spirit of her."
Harbridge describes Amplified as a "rock odyssey".
The cabaret format allows her to directly address the audience, to conjure memories of what Amphlett was like on stage.
"The fans who adored her are as much a character as I am," Harbridge says. "I want it to be a communion of an artist. So yeah, we're in the room together."
The weight of responsibility in creating a show centred on the life and music of someone so beloved by fans doesn't escape Harbridge. "People get this distant, shimmering, glossy look in their eyes when you mention Chrissy Amphlett. They go, 'Oh yeah, I saw her in Toowoomba in '88. And she just blew the roof off.'"
Goodes has directed numerous plays about other trailblazing Australian women — art patron and founder of Melbourne's Heide gallery, Sunday Reed (Anthony Weigh's Sunday, for MTC in 2023, STC in 2024), former prime minster Julia Gillard (Joanna Murray Smith's Julia, National Tour in 2024).
And she says that the key is not in attempting to imitate that person, but in finding ways to bring their essence to life in the room.
Harbridge and Goodes hope Amplified: The Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett will offer younger audiences the chance to get to know Amphlett's music and celebrate her as an artist and rule-breaker 20 years ahead of her time; as a pioneering woman who kicked down doors for future generations of women artists to walk through.
"I think an artist who enrages at the time, is often giving you a glimmer of the rules of the future," Harbridge says. "Someone who just keeps pushing other people's brains into that kind of considerate sponginess. Until one day, the whole matrix moves.
"I know I stand on the shoulders of women like her, who demanded to work in an art form. And now I don't take that for granted."
And what would Amphlett think of the show?
"That's all I'm worried about," she admits.
"I hope we're honouring her. I really hope we are. And I hope we're letting people meet her beyond the 'monster' persona. Which is what she wanted from doing the show."
Amplified: the Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett runs as part of Rising festival from June 11-13.
