Star***** s written, produced and performed by Laura Caesar and Malcolm Whittaker
This four hour duration piece of theatre at the Arts House in Melbourne was described by critics as "a strangely unsentimental love-crafting, the product of an idiosyncratic confessional cottage industry, against the saccharine celebrity romance sagas of the gossip magazines. Caesar and Whittaker insert their more prosaic relationship perspectives, and do so in a gently self-deprecating way.” Whereas, Laura and Malcolm described Star*****s as "our (every) moment in the spotlight. We hope we are interesting enough, beautiful enough, enough of enough.”
During what evolved into a captivating and intimate theatrical experience (part romance, part voyeurism) primary school arts and craft teacher Laura and her partner, artist Malcolm Whittaker exposed and shared with the small group of strangers that had gathered; the realities, simple beauty and acceptance (of self, one another and their relationship), by reading from the personal diaries that document their ten years together.
Seemingly every movement, every moment - together and apart - broken down and made public. Their stories continually unfolded and overlapped as their everyday narratives wove through (almost) never-ending construction and reconstruction. Simultaneously miniature papier-mâché pairs of lovers were constructed from their shredded love letters, to represent the construction and consumption of relationships by media and fairytale, and in turn the consumption of these relationships by the public.
Star***s is about the great suburban dream of fame and fortune and love – and finding it poetically in the banal and everyday.
Their performances and my experience was far from banal and it was beautiful privilege to share their intimate world for this brief time.
