radionotes podcast episodes

RENT

by | Oct 2, 2022 | episodes | 0 comments

RENT

RENT the musical – book, music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson – will hit the Queen’s Theatre in Adelaide, South Australia this month for a limited run season.

Director and cast member Benjamin Maio Mackay joined John Murch for this chat about their life, music and RENT…

Click ‘play’ to listen… may take few seconds to load: 

IMAGE CREDIT: SUPPLIED

RENT will be on from the 6th – 15th of October at the Queen’s Theatre in Adelaide, South Australia.

SHOW NOTES: RENT the Musical

To not miss future episodes follow us:

  • PlayPodcast – directs you, to the Podcast app on your device

….or you can search “radionotes Podcast” in your favourite podcatcher/app.

We can also be found on…  Instagram  –  Facebook  –  Twitter

Feature Guest:

Next Feature Guest: Tara Macri

Also available on Podbean:

and Spotify:

If you’ve not already ‘following’ radionotes Podcast – we can be found on:

Spotify

ApplePodcasts

Google Podcast

and more…

CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

Web-design/tech: Steve Davis

Voice: Tammy Weller  

You can make direct contact with the podcast – on the Contact Page

TRANSCRIPT

First version provided by REV team member ****** – check to audio before quoting wider

John Murch:
The book, the music and lyrics were by Jonathan Larson. Jonathan Larson is in fact the character, real life person of the Tick, Tick…Boom.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah, it’s been really strange because as a musical theatre performer and lover, for years, I’ve known about Tick, Tick as well. And then the film came out late last year with Andrew Garfield and it’s sort of blown Tick, Tick to the proportions that I sort of remember Rent being, like Rent was the main thing that John was known for for years and Tick, Tick was this little autobiographical off Broadway musical about him turning 30 and having a crisis. It sounds like a midlife crisis but a bit young for that. But now with the film and Andrew Garfield’s incredible performance ,and I’m normally not a fan of movie musical adaptations. They rarely land. We get pretty awful ones.

John Murch:
I heard that there was actually a 2005 version of RENT

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Whenever someone brings that up, all I have to say about it is it’s from the director of Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films. And now look, there is nothing wrong with any of those films. It feels like the child friendly version of Rent and it lost so much of the heart and soul. And one of my other significant problems with the film is that so much of Rent the Musical is sung through. So there’s very little actual dialogue. Even the most talkative scenes are often set to music. And with the film, they kept the dialogue almost identical except they made it spoken instead of sung or they took the music away from it. So what you end up with is people talking in ways that they don’t normally because it was music lyrics and now it’s just straight up dialogue.

John Murch:
We’re talking about this Tick, Tick…Boom because I don’t have pay TV, I have no interest in getting it, but it is a phenomenon of some sort.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It’s definitely become one. It’s been really lovely to see, because Tick, Tick is a little musical. When you see it on stage, it’s three people. It’s very small. It never made it to Broadway. It was an off Broadway show for its entire run. It didn’t have the public response or notability that Rent did. And I’m so happy that this film has at least let a handful more people know about it and with a celebrity playing the role and playing it well and getting the award nominations. We really have now, yeah, a phenomenon, which is sort of nice as someone who’s loved John’s work because some listeners may know that John passed away before he saw the success of Rent. So he never lived to actually have a success. It’s nice that the two works he left behind are now in equal sort of stead in the pop culture sphere.
They are incredible works and it’s been really interesting, even with Hamilton, there’s so much that people have borrowed or musically paid tribute to within new work. You can hear bits of John’s influence, which is lovely because if you listen to John you can hear bits of Stephen Sondheim’s influence and I just love the cycle that musical theatre has so much. And I’m sure it’s the same in pop music and other genres that I don’t really engage with as much, but the fact that John has influenced a whole array of composers and lyricists after him is quite beautiful.

John Murch:
What was your first introduction to Jonathan Larson? Was it that of Rent or was it something a little more off Broadway literally?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah, so Rent was my first introduction to Larson because it was, Tick, Tick didn’t really make it over here in the pre-internet days. And finding anything was a challenge musical theatre wise that wasn’t sort of your Phantom, your Cats, all those albums were everywhere. But I had a cassette which was the highlights of Rent. It was a single cassette and it had maybe 12 tracks from the show, but it had some of the hits. It had things like the title song, Rent, it had Light My Candle, it had One Song Glory, La Vie Boheme, the ones that kept in the film essentially, like the film soundtrack but before the film. And I found that at a music store just down the road from here actually, which is now long gone as many of them are. And that became an obsession. I latch onto things. Shockingly, I was diagnosed with autism later in life, but I latch onto things and just become infatuated.
So learning as much as one possibly could at the time about Rent and about John was suddenly that I have to do this, I need to know more. Hard to find at the time because there were also so many rumours. Because for a long time, a great portion of the theatre community outside of New York thought John had died of AIDS. And I was definitely one of those people. When you say that he died of a heart condition to people now, there are still a few who get shocks, have never looked into it. Considering what he wrote about in the world that he was living in, that kind of made sense. So there were so many rumours like that at the time. What’s really interesting about John and the assumptions that we make and everything or were made in that regard is that as much as Tick, Tick is the actual autobiographical musical, Rent is about his friends.
And he was quite open about this and there are many documentaries and I’ve watched almost all of them in the process to sort of end up working on this show. But John had a very close group of friends and he’d do holiday dinners essentially, which is one of the reasons that Rent is pretty much chaptered by holidays. So it starts at Christmas, it ends at Christmas, but we have New Years, we have Valentine’s Day, we have Halloween. And he would have these, I think, family dinners essentially for his friends. And his friends end up being the characters in the show. And talk to people who know or knew John rather, and everyone in Rent is a real person that John was connected to in some way.
And obviously there are embellishments and things, but it’s really interesting when you then look at Rent in that lens because the character of Mark is the John character. And I’m not going to spoil the show for those who haven’t seen it, but it’s fascinating to examine the character of Mark with the lens of going, John was writing about himself, because that character is an outsider from the experience that everyone else seems to have within the show. And you do wonder if that’s how John saw his own life. Because I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that most characters in Rent have AIDS and are living with HIV, and Mark is the one character who really isn’t. All his friends are dying around him and he’s left alive. And then of course the cruel irony in the real world is that some of John’s friends who have AIDS are still alive and John didn’t get to live at all. Which I guess it almost adds a more depressing note to the whole show and to the examination of it being, in a weird way, semi autobiographical as well.

John Murch:
That particular era of the HIV AIDS era was very much the younger years of your life.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It was, yes.

John Murch:
And possibly even just before your informative years, which is an interesting time to have something so publicly discussed in your life. Can you talk to us, if you wish, about how that then was projecting or acting with Benjamin in his life?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah, look, it was and always remains to be unfortunately such a taboo topic. The lack of information and the scare campaign were frightening. And it’s one of those sort of reasons that there’s a level of, not to remotely speak for every queer person, but I think a lot of queer people have the self-loathing, especially ones who grew up through the ’90s. I mean, not that people before didn’t, but it was a different kind of, the government was saying, you are going to die, only you can get this virus. And what has been horrific is that it’s almost become cyclical because they’re doing the same thing with monkeypox. Neither of these viruses are exclusively queer viruses. Straight people can get AIDS, have got AIDS, have passed of AIDS, and straight people can get monkeypox. But I’m finding it really interesting watching the parallels, the speech and the advertising material and even look the rollout of the vaccine for monkeypox being pretty much exclusively available to queer male presenting people.
And it becomes vilifying all over again because all it does is just build that same, oh you don’t want to get near the queer people. And the fact that this year is also the 40th anniversary of the first AIDS diagnosis, there’s a whole lot of depressing cyclical nature and I think that my first recollections of hearing about AIDS and the virus were just fear and internalised loathing because of the way the information was being presented. And I think that the difference, or at least the difference now I hope exists and I do a bit of teaching, musical theatre teaching, so to stereotype, but it’s true, there’s a lot of queer kids within that that you see.
They have the resource of the internet being a place of connectivity as opposed to having very little in that regard. The kids, kids and after teenagers and things as well. But they’re a lot more open with themselves, with each other. So I’m hoping that as much as that directive targeting and language being used around this particular virus, I hope, as distractive as that is, I think that they’ve got a different community to fall back on where back then it was the people you knew that was the community. And was it really all you had.

John Murch:
You yourself, Benjamin, are someone who lives with, I think it’s COPA disease that you have.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I went through the ringer and still take handfuls of tablets a day to keep sort of functioning. And there was a period where I was blind. And a lot of truly horrible things for a very long period of time. And a lot of question marks from a diagnosis point of view. And there was just one incredible doctor who actually went, oh, maybe trying this test. There’s always the one. And it felt very sort of cinematic in that regard of, oh, one doctor went to try this test. Oh, it’s that thing. Now we can medicate, control. Not fix, there’s no permanent solution, but balance and manage. It was very useful in streamlining my priorities, what I want to do with life and the people that I choose to spend time with. Any type of serious illness makes you aware of the possibility of running out of time before you plan to.
I’m not in that position currently, but you definitely go, okay, do I actually like this person? Do I actually want to work on this project? I think it gave me a mental permission to turn certain things down, to stop seeing certain people who didn’t enhance my life, and to go, okay, I love theatre. I’ll fly to Melbourne and see three shows this weekend because it’s going to bring me joy. You get to reassess your life priorities. And I am oddly thankful for that experience.

John Murch:
Back to Larson for a moment if we can.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Of course.

John Murch:
In terms of him having his diagnosis and of course the ramifications of that, him personally possibly knowing he didn’t have that long to go.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
At least from what we know about John, it was a surprise. He didn’t know he was running out of time because everything was undiagnosed. He also didn’t live the healthiest of lifestyles from our understanding of him anyway in terms of just worked himself to death essentially. And, as much as most performing artists have at some point worked themselves to death, I do wonder what John would’ve done differently if he knew how little time he had. He was so passionate about Rent and the show and theatre. And I think that’s one thing that was really important to me in working on RENT is that every creative was as passionate about the show and about John’s legacy as John would’ve wanted.
Because John can’t speak for himself. The production speaks for him or the show, the material speaks for him. That’s all he’s got. That’s it. In many interviews, he talked about RENT being the thing to maintain his friend’s legacies. And now I look at it with the lens of what’s our responsibility to maintain his legacy with the show? So when it came to the rest of the creative team, our musical director, Jesse, our choreographer, Nina, Matt, my co-producer and our technical director, everyone has a strong tie to this show, to this material. It’s so important. Potentially the most important part of this for me was just making sure that he was done justice because he couldn’t do it himself.

John Murch:
As the show RENT, the importance of it being about community and projecting that to the wider audience who choose to come.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
The show and the characters, they’re a chosen family. And I think you see that so much. And I will always use the word family for them because domestics and fights and breakups and everything sort of happens within the scope of this two hour show. But there’s ultimately always a deep love and trust between our sort of eight lead characters. And what’s been beautiful to see in the past three weeks we’ve been rehearsing is that connection genuinely starting to build within our cast members playing the leads. And there’s a couple of people I’ve known for a very, very long time and have been very close with externally. But then there’s a whole heap of people in the show that I’ve never worked with, I haven’t met until this year, and haven’t spent time with them outside of the show. But there was one rehearsal last week where we were working on some particularly heavy material, which is part and parcel of this show and it does sort of emotionally hang with you a little bit afterwards.
And someone suggested we go to the pub and we did, there was a bar down the road and I think we’re the only people in there. And there was this joint connection within that moment, despite having worked through some of the most depressing and people cry often in rehearsals in a good cathartic way. I sort of looked around the table at that point and went, the connections here are becoming as strong as the connections within the character’s lives. And that’s been really beautiful to watch unfold. And we’ve got, there’s romantic couples within the show as well. And watching those connections form, they’re so cute. We’ve got Angel and Collins have some of the happiest moments in the show. And we got to block through some of those last night. And it fills me with such joy watching those two, people and characters, just become real in front of me.
It’s been lovely and I’m really glad that especially our leads, obviously our ensemble is incredible as well, but our leads develop the connections with each other because we all have to believe that they’re a family because they’re representing many of the logical and chosen families of ourselves, of the audiences. And we’ve got an almost entirely queer cast, which is so important from the queer representation point of view as well. I’ve always felt strongly about the show but I feel like this production is solid. And watching the emotional journeys of both the actors and the characters has been really interesting. We had some long conversations last night with a couple of the actors about the people they’re playing and who they think they are and how they’re finding the connections between themselves and the things that are similar and dissimilar to their lives and the characters’ lives.
And look, there is a lot of emotion within the show. The themes that it covers are heavy. There are absolutely fun moments but you can sort of count the fun moments on your hand and then the depressing one to the other two hours. I am very glad ultimately you are left with a happy feeling. And it’s really interesting. When you listen to the cast album of Rent, you kind of go, ah, the last song’s a bit eh. It’s not the best thing of the show. And then having now watched people do it and been part of it as an actor myself, I go, no, there’s a very specific reason that this last song is here and it’s purely for the moment.
You can record it and it’s eh, but when it’s followed the emotional journey for both the characters, the actors and anyone watching, it’s 100% necessary. And doesn’t work in isolation, doesn’t work when you’re shuffling it on your phone or you’re listening to it on a CD. But Finale B is a nice combination of all of the emotions and does, I think, leave the actors, the characters and the audience in a better place emotionally than if you sort of cut it beforehand.

John Murch:
The technical direction for this production, Matt Ralph is on board for this.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
So, Matt is incredible. And I’ve never worked on a show that’s been so collaborative, not just with someone like Matt but with Nina and Jesse or other creatives as well. I’ve often joked to Matt that we are co-parenting a musical because I mean, we both feel very parental of it. But Matt is focusing on the lighting design, the set design, costumes, props, all of the things that are absolutely necessary and enhance the show technically, hence the title. They are one of the most incredible lighting designers that I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. And they’re equally as well versed in theatre itself, which is such an asset. And obviously there’s a huge privilege that comes with that. But they’ve seen almost everything that’s been in this country in the past year, which means they’re learning from other people’s triumphs and mistakes.
There’s just such a benefit of seeing theatre, good or bad. If you are creatively working in the space, seeing as much theatre as you can is fantastic because I think you do learn from people’s mistakes and triumphs. And there have been times where they’ve walked out of a show and called me immediately and gone, “This show did this lighting queue in this way to emphasise this emotional moment. How about we use something like this here and here because that’s going to tie it together?” And every time I’m like yes, that’s genius, that’s brilliant. And there are so many subtle, clever things that I don’t even think audiences are going to pick up on, but just ultimately enhance the show. And look, I would say it’s worth seeing a couple of times if you have the ability in Adelaide to see the show twice, because there are definitely things that end up sort of being called back to which you won’t notice on a first viewing within their technical brilliance.

John Murch:
This production that you’re doing also, and this leans into that technical direction of Matt Ralph as well is that of being a non replica staging of it. And my understanding of that is you’ve got the absolute bare bones that come in the book, the musical and the lyrics of Jonathan Larson, and then you get to build on top of that world.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah. So one of the things that I’m always advocating for in theatre is just different productions. There’s no creative joy, at least as a director, from copying what was done on Broadway for 20 years. That’s not particularly fun. But that is the way that a lot of companies choose to go and that’s entirely fine. Now, we haven’t changed anything material wise, because that’s John’s work.

John Murch:
Book, music, lyrics all there.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Correct. But it’s completely different to any staging that’s previously existed. I think there are two moments in the show that people will recognise and I’m happy to say one of them is the Seasons of Love, which is eight people standing in a line in spotlights. You literally can’t do that number better and I’m happy to acknowledge that. The rest of the show is not imitation, is not a copy. You won’t have seen this staging before. It’s still 100% true to the narrative, doesn’t change that aspect of it. But where’s the fun for audiences and creatives to see the same thing again? We’re not those people, this is a different cast. We’re going to stage it in ways that demonstrate the strength of our cast and our creatives. And people have a look at the Facebook ads because we have quite a strong social media campaign. And there’s a lot of comments from people, I saw this in the ’90s in the first production, which I think had Casey Donovan and Matt Lee in it. And I can’t wait to see this version. And it is this version.

John Murch:
Queen’s Theatre being that perfect venue to actually do a non replica staging of RENT.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah. I’m so happy that we get to use the Queen’s Theatre. I mean, firstly the history of the building and the fact it’s the oldest mainland theatre in the country. I’m also happy that it’s the first major musical since the renovations. But because the building is old, it has the right vibe for the show. And part of our design is that we are not covering the back wall. You’ll be able to see the exposed brick back wall with the cracked windows behind our set, because that’s what it looked like in the era appropriate destination. It’s set in the Lower East Village, it’s set in Alphabet City in New York, which is not or was not a particularly pleasant place to be. And we’ve got this wall that just fits right into the set so why cover that up?
One of the things that I really enjoy about how RENT was written, and this was a choice that John made before he passed, is that there’s a life support group that sort of takes place within the show. And they’ve left room for, or they’ve allowed you to change the names of those characters, because they’re not significant characters, but they’re all on stage for a few minutes. And they allow you to change the names of the characters to people who actually passed away from AIDS within the community.
And we’ve been really lucky that SAMESH here is supporting the production in general but has also given us a list of appropriate names to put in the show, which is just, obviously the show is grounded so much in realism as opposed to most musical theatre, which is absolutely not a criticism of other musical theatre. This is just heavy and real. But I think that just adds an extra layer of it and I’m really happy that we’ve gone to the effort to do that appropriately. It’s been really nice to have the support of SAMESH and to have the support of working with a couple of charities and things as well, donating a portion of ticket sales and things, because the ramifications of the AIDS and HIV crisis, it’s still ongoing. And I’m really glad that we’ve had the resources and the support to provide information.
We have a school booking for RENT, which, look, it’s a very adult show but the school was made aware of that and I’m happy that I guess that they’re comfortable exposing the students to this because there are a lot of great conversations that are going to be had I think as a result of them seeing it. But Samish is helping us put together a resource book along with them so we can pass on appropriate information for that age group as well, because I think, and we’re going to have a QR code link available in the theatre that links people to appropriate mental health resources and sexual health resources that is being put together by these charities and SAMESH that we’re working with.

John Murch:
We’re currently in conversation with Benjamin Maio Mackay. Rent at the Queen’s Theatre is the 6th to 15th of October, 2022 in Adelaide, South Australia. 1868 was when the Opera La bohème was big, was happening.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Rent is loosely based on La bohème. And that was the impetus for John starting the project. I think someone approached him and said, I think you should or we should rework this for a contemporary time about our artists, the world that we live in, and consumption became AIDS. There were changes like that. So there are very much parallels. There are a couple of songs that you can even go, okay, this is the version of that. I think from a staging point of view, at least with our production, we’ve lent into some of the more darker realism that the opera did that some productions of RENThave shied away from. So I’ve drawn a bit of inspiration from some of those choices because there are now productions of La bohème that are staged similarly to RENT because they’ve sort of seen that that was based on that and then come back around again, if that makes sense. The biggest change between La bohème and RENT is the ending. La bohème has a very depressing ending. I’m not saying the ending of Rent is happy but it’s significantly happier.

John Murch:
But I’m hearing that your production of RENT is leaning into the darker element, so you are willing to go darker in the body and then go a little lighter at the end.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah.

John Murch:
That’s more satisfying.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It really is. I think you get more audience payoff, you get a complete emotional journey, and I think that’s really important for both cast and audiences to have that ebb and flow. Only seen the opera once in its entirety and then sort of picked bits and pieces to re-watch and reexamine as I started this process many months ago. And I think it’s really interesting. There are even just small lyrics that Larson has quite literally translated and borrowed that have ended up in the show. One day, I’d like to sort of sit down and see it again after having spent so much time with this book of material. Because even being a big fan of the show, there have been things I have not picked up on until working on it, I mean, as you do when you spend almost every hour of every day consuming the material and thinking about the material and the subtext and the inference and everything, you do learn a lot more.
But now with this lens that I have, I’d love to finish this process and go back and see how much more I can get from La bohème as a result. Once RENT ends, I will shut the door on that chapter of my career for a little bit, it’s just the RENT chapter. But I’d love to work on Tick, Tick. There are definitely other Larson things that I’d want to examine and absolutely other musicals, there will definitely be musicals next year that I’m working on. I can say that for sure. But things of this ilk, someone asked me not that we’re offering you to tour it, but would you tour this show? As much as that would be a really great experience, I’m not sure if I would because firstly we’ve built it around the theatre that we have, now it has been a really specific part of what we wanted to do.
And secondly, it’s exhausting as a performer to take away the director hat for a minute, purely speak as an actor. Physically, it’s really tiring. And I’ve worked on a lot of shows, but nothing quite like this emotionally. And it’s not remotely about method acting because I don’t believe in that, that’s nonsense. But the thing is, if you get into a mindset, your mind can switch off and you can have control over that. But your mind has put your body through the emotions for real. You can’t turn that off. So if you’ve activated your fight and flight, that’s happened, and that just adds a level of additional exhaustion to the whole process, which is not a bad thing because it means everything is I guess working as such and the experiences feel real to both the cast creatives and then hopefully audiences.
Both pros and cons for me is I’m playing romantically opposite a very, very close friend of mine, which does mean we laugh at inopportune moments sometimes in rehearsals as you do when you’ve known someone for so long and now have to make out with them. It can be weird. But I’m also, my character is also letting down someone that I love very much in the real world nightly. I’m carrying someone. Beyond the character, I look and see a friend, a very close friend, and go, oh, you are dying in my arms kind of thing. There’s a whole level of different emotional intensity that comes with that.

John Murch:
Let’s talk about music. Of course La bohème is leaning into the opera world. Benjamin, is opera part of your musical palette normally as a listener?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It’s not. The two genres I engage most with are musical theatre, and this next one’s probably going to come as a shock to a lot of people, and country music. I really enjoy the often narrative storytelling that exists within country music like that.

John Murch:
So it’s not the campness of it?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
That’s a part of it, especially when you’re talking Dolly Parton-esque era and I love those things. But there’s something really nice, even people like Taylor Swift who I guess started country, went pop, has moved back to country in a lot of ways, or at least folk. She tells a complete story through a song and that’s so musical theatre of it. And I’m not saying that pop and rock and other gen res don’t tell stories, they obviously do. But I guess it’s just clearer to me or it speaks to me more from country music. Well, obviously the camp side of it as well is a delight.

John Murch:
Sorry, stereotype in any particular way. That’s a bit unfair. I know.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
We’re recording in my lounge room that has a Cher doll. I don’t think we need to be worried about stereotypes. One of the hardest decisions in my life was choosing to go to the Cher concert or the Panic at the Disco concert that were on the same night. I went to Cher. Those are really the two types of music I engage with. And a smattering of pop, but not much. Sort of just your Taylor Swift-esque stuff and then Fleetwood Mac.

John Murch:
How deep are you then in terms of the musical theatre tunes and listening to them? I guess, how much of a diet of that is it? Are you like Mark Humphries’ kind of level of that listening?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yes, I love Mark very much. We’ve only met in person a few times.

John Murch:
Because he’s a Sondheim kind of guy.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I mean, I love Sondheim and I think he might be the one person in this country who loves Sondheim more than me. My favourite Mark musical theatre story is that we both made the same era in 2016. And we only learned this later, and I’m sure there are other people who made this mistake. But the irony of us being so passionate about musical theatre, both making it, we both had obviously individually separate trips planned to New York City in the end of that year. We both love musicals. We were both pre-booking shows. We both looked at the blurb of a show called Hamilton and went, eh doesn’t really sound good at all. Don’t like rap, don’t like hip hop. Just why would that be good or interesting? So we both had the opportunity to see Hamilton at a reasonable price with the original Broadway cast and we both messed it up. I think we’re both still, I mean, I’m still kicking myself about that one.

John Murch:
You’ve now had a chance to see Hamilton?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I have only this year, because I had tickets in March of 2020 and then, you know.

John Murch:
Stuff happened.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Some stuff happened. But I finally got to see it. I travel for theatre a fair bit or at least when the budget allows. And I did five shows in four days. I saw Penn and Teller Live, because I’d always wanted to see them. I saw Cursed Child, Hamilton, Cruel Intentions, and Six. And that was my third time seeing Six. And then I sort of walked out of Hamilton and I have to see that again. So got tickets to see it in a couple of weeks.

John Murch:
The Taylor Swift record I did see in the corner of my eye while you were answering that, above that is something called Nashville in Concert 2018 Farewell Concert. Maybe this is a housemate so we can move on.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It’s not. It’s mine. Yeah.

John Murch:
What’s that about?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
So there was a TV series called Nashville that ran from I think 2012 to 2018. It was a drama slash soap opera type thing, but within it was set in the world of country music. And they wrote and performed original songs for the show. There was at least 100 songs a season kind of thing. So it was very music heavy and all of the cast were incredible musicians. I fell in love with the show really. I knew a couple people who worked on it who sort of got me hooked or let me know that it existed really. I wouldn’t have stumbled across it normally. But yeah, I had a friend who was in the main cast in a non-music role for it and I got sent the DVDs and I sort of inhaled it very quickly. That’s sort of where that comes from. I have loved the music and it’s obviously country music, which I’m a fan of anyway.

John Murch:
Tour is part of the TV series.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yes. They toured all over the world performing songs from the show.

John Murch:
Live performance was part of what they recorded as part of the show.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
To an extent. I think that the big tours in the end were just sort of four fans as themselves or as characters. But they did all these concert tours, I think three or four. And I’ve even produced shows by one of the stars since during Fringe as well.

John Murch:
Can we talk about Rainee Blake, just days before we’re chatting today and it’ll be weeks by the time you the listener hear this. The new single is called Closer.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It is.

John Murch:
I’ve never heard their music before. Wow.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah. Isn’t she great? And that’s the kind of music that you sort of heard on those Nashville shows and tours and stuff. And just, what a voice, what a writer. Very last minute getting her here for Fringe. Because obviously Borders mainly based in the States and I’ve known her for a while and we’d talked about doing some shows. And the Borders opened and we found a venue and she came out and we had a couple of great concerts here and one in Sydney. And she sort of walked away from the end and went, “Yeah, I have to come back and do this again next year.” And I’m like, yes, yes we do. And having some more time and a bit of a longer run would be great. Yeah, I think listeners should just go and listen to the single, listen to her music. It’s fantastic. Hopefully if you are in Australia, at least you’re going to get to see her again in concert if you so wish next year.

John Murch:
Benjamin, let’s go back to the music within RENT now. What exactly would you say is the driving force of the music of RENT?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It’s a rock musical or it’s a rock opera, which I think is a really beautiful combination of things because you get the instrumentation of rock with the emotion of opera. But it’s definitely a rock musical. We’ve got a band, not an orchestra. It’s very much written instrumentationally for a five piece, a couple of guitars, a keyboard.

John Murch:
The obvious question is, are we talking live music every night?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Live music every night, yeah.

John Murch:
Wow.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Jesse Bidell leads our band and it just sounds incredible. And getting to work with live musicians is so much more fulfilling as a performer because, not that we ever aimed and make things hugely different tonight. But in the event that okay, we’re going, if for whatever reason, someone’s singing a little bit fast tonight, the band will catch you. it drives with you as opposed to, okay, the tracks is two minutes forty so you got to sing the same thing.

John Murch:
That can be an audience thing as well. And I’m not just talking about interruptions, maybe they’ll not be those, but in terms of the audience going gasp, it’s like well let’s grab that gasp.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
And even applause between songs. That changes, that always changes based on your audience. And I guarantee that the matinee might be a little bit quieter audience wise than the evening show. So having a band to actually follow us and be conducted live every night is so much more joyful.

John Murch:
Where were you first introduced to music Benjamin?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I think growing up my parents played a lot of Fleetwood Mac in the house, which I’m very happy with. That’s lasted, which is nice. And it’s just even having at a point Rage being on the TV, that’s definitely an early memory of music. And the radio was just always on. My grandparents played music as well. Very different styles of music, but they played music so I guess I was just always around it. I learned piano from a very young age, which ironically at the time, I was not particularly thrilled about, but has been a saving grace of my career. I’m so glad that I can read dots on a page and play music. Music’s been in my life for as long as I can remember, which is really lovely.

John Murch:
What was the first concert? Very much a rock quiz question. What was the first concert you went to?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
First proper concert that I went to by myself would’ve been a Keith Urban concert. I really enjoy what he does musically. It’s been weird to see him get more and more popular. I know he’s always been a big country thing, but he wasn’t playing arenas that long. It was a time not that long ago where he wasn’t playing arenas and now he absolutely is and is just killing it.

John Murch:
So country music continue to be in your blood then. Who’s a country music artist that we probably don’t know about? So Keith Urban we know about, Troy Castallies, all those kind of idoles. Who’s a country artist we don’t know about that you’re into?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Australia’s got a much weaker comprehension of country music anyway, so Americans have a much better grasp on that. People like Kelsey Ballerini, I really enjoy what she does. Same with Maron Morris and Tenille Townes, all of those performers all got larger profiles in the States. Cassadee Pope as well. As you can see, sort of lean typically more towards the female Taylor Swift-esque country artists.

John Murch:
Why do you think that is?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
They’re more likely to not sing about trucks. Very genuinely. As much as I love country music, some of the male artists lean too heavily into the stereotypes because they think that’s what country music is. Also, women in country music have had a much harder fight because of unfortunately some of the conservative audiences, especially in the States, they have to fight harder to be heard. And that means they kind of fight in their own unique sounds as well. They’re not trying to fit in a box where I think a lot of the time, at least from the label purview, they’re just trying to make the next Blake Shelton. And sure, I enjoy listening to some of Blake Shelton’s music, but we don’t need 50 people who sound like Blake singing about trucks and beer where you get narrative, interesting, musically diverse country music from women more consistently.

John Murch:
So is there a country music performer you’re looking forward to seeing in the not too distant future? Is there one on your radar?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I’d love to see Brandi Carlile. That’s bucket list. Or the Chicks.

John Murch:
As they’re now known.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah, as they’re now known. I missed out because I was working in state overseas at the time. They were last in Australia. And I have kicked myself for not making that happen.

John Murch:
Let’s talk about body confidence. Because being an actor, you have to have a lot of that confidence. You have to portray both yourself but also the character that you need to portray. Naked Cabaret is something you are quite passionate and have been part of.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It’s genuinely one of the most wholesome experiences I’ve ever had as a performer. I think what’s really important with that show, the rules are set out by the hosts of which I have been one before. Right at the top of the night, well afternoon, as it typically is. For the most part, like 98% of the time, people actually follow the rules.

John Murch:
You know what the rules are? You know what you can and can’t do?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Yeah. And it’s wholesome. It’s genuinely lovely to see people being comfortable in themselves and exist. And it’s just a cabaret show. The nudity plays very little element within it. And there are times where you just forget you’re standing in a room where every performer and every tech in it is everyone. So everyone in the venue, tech staff, bar staff, performers, audience, and yet all the money goes to the Butterfly Foundation. It’s such a delightful thing to do. We never really announce the set list publicly, but the array of excellent and notable performers who’ve come through that door because they feel passionately about making people feel comfortable and being comfortable themselves.
And I think there’s also been watching some performers have just realisations about how comfortable they are in their own skin. I didn’t get to host this last year’s because I unfortunately got COVID at an inconvenient time. But Gary Starr took over and he’s an incredible performer and still produced the event alongside Clicks to Cheers. And I’m really happy that even when I’m out of things, it goes on and it’s still as wholesome and as much of a fundraising effort as it has been in previous years.

John Murch:
It’s a bit generic to say it’s about confidence, but if you, Benjamin, keeping in mind that you’ve been part of things like Naked Cabaret and various other forms of the theatre, how has that influenced your confidence over the years? May that be body confidence, right through to self-awareness.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I think being on stage makes you more aware of how you exist in the real world. Just everything, the physical movements. Because obviously on stage, every physical movement is pre-thought, prepared, executed and you know why you’re doing it. So I think that leads you to think more about why you move in certain ways and hold yourself in certain ways and why you points in life. But I think the confidence that has come from theatre is just being happy to take up space. I think that being a performer, you’re told to fill space and that has translated into, yeah, it’s actually okay that I’m taking up space in this environment, in this community, in this bar, club, house, whatever, which is a lovely thing to have.

John Murch:
How can a musician, so let’s talk about music now, and you do do some music. How can a musician take those elements of theatre that we’ve just spoke into their performance?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Musicians need to know how to hold themselves. They need to know how to present. If they’re talking between songs or sets, there’s so much that directly translate. Live music performance is still a type of theatre, in a less traditional sense, but it still requires the same output. I think it’s things like learning how to speak properly, how to hold yourself on stage. Again, taking up space as a musician, you have to be happy to take up space and that can very much be learned from more traditional theatre methods.

John Murch:
And that also brings us to this world of cabaret. We have both the Adelaide Cabaret Fringe and the cabaret festivals. We have some pretty big names like Kate Ceberano, Tina Arena, and Eddie Perfect, that have taken the reins over the years as well as some amazing South Australians heading up the team for the Adelaide Cabaret Fringe. What’s your vibe or understanding of Cabaret?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Cabaret has been a wonderful learning tool because what you see within cabaret is people trying things they might not otherwise try. And that extends to people who are very well first and professional performers who have done it 20, 30 years. But cabaret gives you a chance to perform as yourself. There are still character cabarets and things which are great. And I’ve done some character driven cabarets and story driven cabarets in the past. But traditional cabaret and the way that it’s also taught is about being yourself on stage, and still, that’s a version of yourself.
And we all understand that. It adds a vulnerability to performance. And as I’ve seen that with high professional level performance who’ve come from Broadway and now it’s just them and a piano and they’re going to tell some stories in between it and they’re going to learn how to speak about their own lives. Because as actors traditionally, you don’t speak about yourself and you don’t speak as yourself. So cabaret fits into a really nice midway of walking a line between a character and you. Yeah, I enjoy watching them and I enjoy watching people get better at them.

John Murch:
One thing I do know about you, which was very exciting, and this gets back to the name of the production company that you do, is that you’re a Whovian.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I was. I haven’t seen any in years.

John Murch:
He was. I think he was.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I know. And I feel-

John Murch:
Did you tap out at Matt Smith?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
I did. I genuinely did.

John Murch:
Was it Matt Smith though?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
It was the end of his era. I don’t think I saw him regenerate. Even in my biggest Whovian years, I always love the classic stuff far more. Like Patrick Trouten was my favourite doctor, and if I’m ever in the mood to go back, that’s where I’m going. It’s nothing that’s new and fancy.

John Murch:
Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Absolutely not. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but I also will say I was so happy that they passed it on to Jody and I haven’t seen anything she’s done. But I think she’s a tremendous actor. And now with them choosing Ncuti Gatwa as well, they’re making good creative choices, which I think will just bring a new generation of people to it.

John Murch:
It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, Benjamin.

Benjamin Maio Mackay:
Well, thank you so much. It’s been great.

 

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *