Em Barrett is a versatile, award-winning New Zealand performer and writer about to debut at the Melbourne Fringe Festival with her unhinged new show, Ode to a Grape, in which she takes on the role of her comedic alter-ego Johann.
Ahead of the show’s run at this year’s Fringe, we sat down with Em to discuss the inspiration behind the show, what inspires her as a performer, and, given the show’s title, exactly what her favourite fruit is.
Thanks for talking with me today, Em. Could tell me a bit about yourself as a performer and what led you to a career as an actor and comedian?
It’s kind of funny how I started becoming a performer. For me, I just really like doing silly impersonations. It’s something I haven’t really thought about much, until I was living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and I stumbled upon a drag show.
I think I was probably like maybe 19 or 20 at the time, and I was totally in awe. It was amazing. And I turned to the person next to me and I was like, “Oh I want to do that!” and they were like “Oh, well, you want to be in a show?”
Then the next thing I knew, I was roped into a drag show and then I became a drag performer. I quite enjoyed characterising my performances, having a really strong character for each drag king performance and playing more into the humour of it.
From drag I realised I really like performing. At the time I was studying media studies at uni, which wasn’t very satisfying for me. I dropped out and then maybe six-months-to-a-year later, I ended up at drama school.
Fast forward to 2021 when I graduated. I really wanted to do the Fringe Festival with my graduation piece and that is where I met Sameena Zehra. She worked as my director and dramaturge, and we started creating Community together, which is where Johann originated and it also went on to win the ‘Tour Ready Award’ at the New Zealand Fringe Festival.
But part of the process was going and testing stuff in the stand-up comedy scene, which I was encouraged by Sameena to try because Sameena does comedy and she’s well known in the scene and is very inspiring to me.
So, I took everything I learned from drama school, the theatrical aspects, the characterisation. I tested my characters out in the real world for that show I was working on at the time, and it just kept going. That’s kind of how I ended up in the comedy scene.
You’ve mentioned that your early comedy work had a lot of audience interaction. Do you like comedy that can be quite confrontational for an audience?
Yeah, I do. I really like it because I like being connected to my audience. It just feels nice, which is an aspect of clown as well, which is something I’ve studied.
I like being really present, breaking the fourth wall, engaging with audiences and bringing them into my world or bringing them into strange scenarios and my character’s headspaces.
It doesn’t feel right to not have a direct response for me. I’m actually really different as an audience member. I actually hate audience interaction, which is so funny. So, it’s not for everyone.
Your Fringe Show you’re performing as Johann is titled Ode to a Grape, could you tell me what the show is about?
I’ll summarise it like this. A misfit artist, a world that doesn’t understand him and his battle with his inner demons. I’ll pose these questions – What does it mean to be an artist in a consumerist world and how can you keep the joy alive?
And it also has a lot of absurd poetry.
And what inspired you to write this show?
Johann. 100% Johann. He was a really big part of my last show Community, which I mentioned before, and ever since I took him out into the stand-up comedy scene, he’s just had a life of his own. I have so much fun playing him.
It just felt natural for him to have his own show. Me and Sameena have agreed for a long time that he needed a solo show.
Was it a nice surprise that a character you created had inspired you to create a new work?
Yes, definitely. It makes me happy that I can pull so much from Johann in that way. I think sometimes, especially as a fringe artist, there’s a lot of pressure to always be making the new thing, the next thing, the next big idea. It can be really draining, and feeds into the consumer culture of arts and everything.
[With Johann], it feels like I kind of sowed a seed and I keep harvesting this crop of inspiration.
What is it like taking on the role of Johann in this show and do you think you can do things as this character that you wouldn’t do as yourself on stage?
It’s very freeing to play Johann for sure but we actually have a lot in common. I just think we do things in different ways.
For example, he really hates people. No offence! He’s very anxious, and he would probably rather be lying in a field staring at the clouds to be honest.
But, unlike me, he doesn’t really hide it apart from being anxious. He doesn’t want people to know that he’s doubting himself. But he’s very passionate about his beliefs and he isn’t afraid to be really honest, which is different from me.
Like if the audience says something that he doesn’t like for example, he would tell them and then he’ll write a poem about it and he’ll make them sit through it as if it’s a profound piece of ancient text. But I’m a total people pleaser, so if someone annoys me I’m not gonna really say anything.
How long before doing a show do you become that character and do you try and get in the mindset of Johann before you go on stage?
At the moment I’m in the Johann mindset every day. It’s like that little voice in my head, which is really funny. But I spend like an hour maybe before the show stepping into Johann mindset. I like to get into costume, practice lines and become a very immersive sort of performer. I do this at comedy gigs as well.
As soon as I’m in the Johann costume character, I’m not Em anymore. I’m Johann. And everyone I talk to talks to Johann and not me. That’s what I do before my show, which is fun and slightly depersonalising, but it’s good.
I was wondering what it’s been like collaborating with your director Sameena Zehra on this project?
It’s been great. I love Sameena. We’ve been collaborating since 2021, so it’s been nice to work together again. She’s quite good at challenging me to find the nuance in my performance.
As the writer as well, having written Johann for so long, I get stuck in my ways, like in a certain way of performing. With comedy gigs, for example, Johann is very grumpy and has a lot of disdain for the situation and that’s quite fun. But she pushes me to take the performance to the next level.
We’ve known each other for so long and she’s known Johann for such a long time. Like maybe she might know him a bit too well, to be honest. She definitely is the receiver of 3AM voice memos from Johann with his deepest poems.
I really trust her with this character, so it’s great to be working with her.
When you’re working with a director on a Fringe show or a Comedy Festival show, do they continue to be part of the process when you’re doing the show or do they take a step back once you’ve started your run of shows?
I think it probably depends on the director and the relationship. For me, with Sameena, she’s actually overseas at the moment, in Aotearoa, that’s where she’s based. But I don’t think she’ll be taking a step back during my season at all, I imagine she will still be checking in about the performance.
In the past, we’ve been very present with each other and checking in about how performances have gone and usually sent a video of the performance. It’s an ongoing conversation and important to be connected over the season as well.
When you do a show as well, it’s like a development. As you perform every night, you find new things with a piece, which is really cool. So, it’s good to stay in touch with each other and keep talking about how the show is transforming or what you need to remember to do or say something in a particular way.
Do you think Australians and New Zealanders have similar sense of humour or are there differences in what we laugh at?
I think New Zealand has a very deadpan sense of humour. They lean more towards absurd humour than Aussies. But especially if I’m seeing the comedy festival here, I think Australians maybe have a broader understanding of comedy in general.
Here you have character comedy, you have sketch comedy, you have clown. And then in New Zealand, it’s just like, ‘oh, you’re funny or you’re not’ kind of vibe.
That’s like the main difference I’ve noticed. I think Australian audiences have a slightly more crass sense of humour, which isn’t particularly my vibe, but they seem to like that humour here.
What are you most excited about for the upcoming Melbourne Fringe Festival and how do you think it’ll compare with the New Zealand Fringe Festivals you’ve been a part of?
I’m really excited about Melbourne Fringe. It’s been on my bucket list for years. There seems to be a very generous and committed audience here as well.
I think in New Zealand, the fringes are already great. There’s definitely that element of collaboration across different genres, especially into Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Because you’ll get burlesque performers collaborating with comedians or collaborating with noise artists or something.
It’s a really awesome experience of collaboration and working together, which I love. But because there’s a small population in New Zealand, audiences are spread really thin and it’s pretty hard times over there at the moment.
People don’t have as much money to spend. Even funding to the arts, the government’s pulling a lot of funding. It’s pretty bleak at the moment [so] I’m excited to be part of something bigger and with more people available.
It really changes things when people can commit to go and see live art. We’d be nowhere without our audiences.
That’s what it’s all about. Go see something different. Go learn something new, have a different perspective. That’s what art is. I could go a whole rant about it, but it’s a very important conversation tool and we need that more than anything at the moment.
Did you have any other Melbourne Fringe shows that you would recommend people check out this year?
I’d really recommend A Lucky Refugee? by my friend Bahaa Dabbagh. He’s a great comic and his show is amazing.
It’s a cuttingly funny view on Australian culture, which really makes you think and I relate to it highly. As someone who’s come from a different country and can see some quite sharp culture differences here, I really recommend that one.
Do you think the next show you do will be as yourself or will you continue with the character-based comedy shows?
I can’t promise anything. I’m imagining it would be just as myself but I’m a character comedian through and through.
I’ve got some absurd characters that have been in the background for a while, so that’s what I’m thinking. And I swore that I would never ever perform as myself.
On the topic of the show’s title, what is your favourite fruit?
It’s lychees. I love them. They’re these really pointy, sharp little shells that you have to peel off. I love that it tastes so good.
Any final things you wanted to mention about Ode to a Grape?
Thank you, yes, we’re trying to make the show accessible to the neurodivergent community and people who are deaf or hard of hearing. So, every night we have open captions and on the 30th of September, we also have a low sensory night.
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Em Barrett’s Ode to a Grape is playing at the Motley Bauhaus from September 28-October 3. More information and tickets at melbournefringe.com.au/ode-to-a-grape
Photo credit: Madeline Royce
TINSEL and TAP SHOES 