There will be original songs of course, sung in her unmistakeable voice, but what is Quinn doing differently with this show? “I’m saying something different, being honest,” she says. “There are a lot more stories I have to tell in this show; things I need to explain.” Modern Day Maiden Aunt is a look at being an outside of sorts within your closest circle, about not conforming when you’re expected to, and making art.
“Modern Day Maiden Aunt is about being an aunty,” she says. “But it’s also exploring the fact that different things happen in different people’s lives; about the presumptions people make about women who are nearly 40. People expect you to get a proper life. Society finds it very hard to place women over a certain age. It can be very hard. I feel like ‘the poor cousin’ sometimes. My dad says things to me like, ‘You’ve got to look at a teaching degree. Who’s going to look after you later?’ But how many other women are in this position? How many of my friends are exactly the same? It’s more normal for us than they think.”
Faced with the monolithic model of the nuclear family unit, it can be hard for the single and/or childless artistic woman to remind herself how rich her world is in so many other respects. “I’ve got other things in my life,” says Quinn, “but it’s always a partner that comes along to family events, so my family don’t get to meet my friends.”
In her show, Quinn takes the opportunity to have a go at herself – “all the crap that I do wrong.” Like what? “I’m terrible at relationships and holding down a job. I’ve got no money. I’ve only got a car ‘cause my parents thought I should have one. I get to say to my nieces, ‘You know, it looks glamorous but I’m still getting changed in toilet cubicles when I do shows!’” (There’s so much here this writer relates to, let me tell you!)
Quinn also has a go at social media trends, in particular the tendency of parents to keep posting pictures of their kids. “It’s not that I don’t like kids,” she explains. “Just because I don’t have them doesn’t mean I don’t like them. I have a crap-load of kids in my life. I know more about kids more than most other people who don’t have their own. Kids are hilarious, they’re weird and spongy, they’re amazing to watch, they learn so fast. There’s an injection of joy you get when you know children well. But when that’s all you’ve got to talk about… I think, ‘Sorry about posting about my little show…’”
Quinn doesn’t necessarily think she should have the usual trappings of adulthood but being the only one in her family without them sometimes leaves her on the outer in family conversations. But hey, she gets to make a comedy show about it all. “There’s an expectation that if you haven’t had kids, that there’s a reason. It’s ‘why, why, why?’ But I didn’t pick this.”
For many women, negotiating this sort of thing in company is excruciating. Quinn doesn’t deny that it’s hard and she says she’s lucky she’s able to joke about it. “Artists are lucky. At least we get to make something – I can pick up a guitar and produce these things that didn’t exist before. And it helps that I dress like a drag queen.”
What about the literary or theatrical tradition of the glamorous single aunt, the one who travels, has lovers and inspires her nieces, showing them that the conventional life isn’t the only one? Quinn almost qualifies. “But the difference was that they were all rich! They weren’t married but they were in possession of their own fortunes.” Quinn does try to be a good influence on her nieces and nephews. “I want to be the best person I can be, not just the one who’s different in the family,” she notes. “They like me no matter how much of a fuck-up I am. They like me the way I am.”
The last few years have seen her working very hard. “I want to push myself musically,” she says. “I want to be saying something different, not the same things everyone else is saying. I’ve been insanely focussed on this,” she adds, about Modern Day Maiden Aunt.
Quinn reckons there’s a particularly strong female element to this year’s MICF. “Women are going to storm the festival,” she says. “Adrienne Truscott, Bryony Kimmings, Jen Brister, Kate McLennan, Juliet Meyers. And the local comics, Felicity, Celia; there are so many Aussie chicks!” As well as her good self. Has Quinn any ideas for her next show? “Not yet. But the ideas will come.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
