"Buxom", "appropriately curvaceous" and "ill-managed" – these are just a few of the adjectives that have been used to describe the bodies of critically acclaimed cabaret stars Maeve Marsden and Libby Wood (whom you may recognise from feminist singing ensemble Lady Sings It Better and Mother’s Ruin: A Cabaret About Gin).
Armed with dry wit and amazing voices, Marsden and Wood delivered Fat Musicals, an empowering and honest satire on musical theatre, as part of Darlinghurst Theatre’s Comedy Kiki, a series of queer comedy in association with Sydney Mardi Gras.
Fat Musicals celebrates all there is to love about musical theatre while jabbing a knowing elbow at everything that makes it problematic – from overly critical casting agents, to plot lines that promote dangerous ideas about romance, to massive blind spots around any romance that isn't heterosexual, and most of all the fatphobia pervasive in the entertainment industry.
Deftly playing the part of being disorganised and underprepared as they continued to beat upon the fourth wall, Marsden and Wood skilfully weaved a narrative that was heartwarming and self-aware. They managed to imbue tongue-in-cheek mix-ups of classic songs with knowing reflections on the experience of moving through the world in a body not considered conventionally attractive.
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Their take on Cell Block Tango from Chicago was where things really took off, with references to a sexist casting director and a doctor ignorant to a 16-year-old girl's eating disorder. Marsden eventually got her Cats number (much to Wood’s dismay), and Wood made space for a show-stopping ballad from female-led new musical Waitress. Interjections from their gorgeous pianist were always welcomed from the audience (even if the leading ladies constantly scolded him and forced him to down cookies to make himself 'fat enough' to be in the show).
They earnestly expressed the experience of being a fat person and a woman in this world – the anger, frustration and the sadness, and also the exquisite joy of knowing, loving and accepting yourself in spite of it all. It shouldn't go unnoted that they did this all while wearing horizontal stripes, before changing into unitards for the finale, because fuck society.
Fat Musicals is Marsden and Wood stripped back and at their best, taking the audience on a feelgood ride and celebrating the beauty of female friendship (while showing a complete awareness for how cliche it is to celebrate that, because musicals). We need more of these women on our mainstages!
