Gretel Killeen is quite the surprise package.
An author, social commentator, MC and journalist, these days the very gutsy Killeen has returned to the place where it all started: standup comedy.
She joins Jackie Loeb in their two-woman standup comedy show We don’t Like Young People on stage at the Ocean Shores Country Club in December.
Although Gretel is clear it’s Jackie’s issue, not hers.
‘If I can be perfectly honest,’ she confides, ‘It’s Jackie who is the evil one. She doesn’t like young people because she’s bitter and jealous. It’s her, her motivation is her own ageing self!’
Fortunately she has her good mate Gretel to support her.
‘I have to to look after her. The other day she showed her bum when she walked offstage…’
Gretel isn’t convinced she’s ageing. She’s more concerned about the poor quality of her mirrors.
‘You look in different mirrors because it’s the mirror’s fault.’
Getting older renders women invisible, and that doesn’t sit well with Ms Killeen.
‘The thing that really riles me is that we have a society that considers us to be useless as we get older and completely devalues the asset of wisdom.’
Gretel believes that women and men are coming to their shows because they want to hear ‘the absolute truths of our lives’.
‘Whether it’s about birth or the shape of our bodies or economics we are onto it!’
Comedy wasn’t intentional for Killeen, who admits it just kind of happened.
‘I started in standup accidentally then life took over. When I first started doing it I was about 20. I was part of something that the media called a wave of female comediennes: Wendy Harmer, Maryanne Fahey, Sue Ingleton, Mandy Salmon, Rachel Berger, and Victoria Roberts… I did a voice tape, did voice-overs, ended up on Big Gig, and then The Midday Show…I didn’t have a natural standup personality. To be perfectly honest it’s taken me this many years of life’s slings and arrows to work out who I am onstage…!
’I hid in character. At the age of 20 I was performing the bedraggled housewife – it worked and some of the jokes were funny, although ironically I thought I was making myself safe by doing it as a character, but I was entrapping myself. You can’t come out of a character and riff with the audience. I think that’s the real beauty of standup – riffing with the audience. It’s a great metaphor for life; the safety net makes us weaker, not stronger!
‘For me getting up and doing standup is allowing me to evolve more as the person that I am. I have spent a lot of my life bewildered by the world, and I love getting to the place where I am telling the stories that I always thought were shameful! People seem to enjoy seeing the mechanics of how your mind works. When I am onstage I want to bring in the story and truth of my experience.’
Gretel Killeen and Jackie Loeb perform in We Don’t Like Young People at the Ocean Shores Country Club on Saturday 10 December, 8.30pm.
Ticket $35 + BF
Bookings: www.oceashorescc.com.au.
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