Five Minutes With Talya Rubin

What is your favourite children's tale? My favourite children's tale is The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Anderson. I was really captivated by it as a child. It is intensely creepy and so horrible it is hard to process for a young mind, and yet it was compelling and I wanted to understand it. The colour red really frightened me for a while after I read the tale. I couldn't look at it before bed, it was so scary.

What's the best thing about being a solo performer? Having an enormous amount of creative control and also coming up against your limitations and having to be accountable and ruthlessly honest about what you are up to.

If you could have dinner with anybody from history, who would it be? CG Jung. I think he would make for a great dinner companion.

Did you explore much as a child? I always remembered my dreams and liked to write, so I know I did a lot of internal exploration. I also loved to roam my neighbourhood in Montreal. We were left to do what we liked a lot; I remember hours in the back garden and wandering round to friends' places and no one really keeping tabs on us. 

If you weren't involved in theatre, what would you be doing? When I was a kid I used to say I would be a ballerina and a gorilla when I grew up, maybe that's kind of what I'm doing now... So I would say marine biology. I was mad about whales as a kid and had a fantasy that I would grow up to own a house with a sunken living room that was under the sea and had glass walls, like a massive aquarium. 

WHAT: Of The Causes Of Wonderful Things
WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 1 to Saturday 4 May, Brisbane Powerhouse: Visy Theatre