At the back of the fridge
Liberty, Equality and Self Determination, or, Do I really have to get out of bed today?
Written and performed by Daska Saleeba
At the Fringe Studio, Melbourne
Sat May 29, 8.30 p.m. and Sun May 30, 6.30 p.m.
Feminist writer and performer Daska Saleeba has won a dedicated following for her monologues on such diverse topics as politics, sex, shopping and women's magazines. She has performed regularly at venues such as the Lounge and Cafe Yartz, as part of the St Kilda, Northcote and Fringe Festivals, and at numerous benefits for causes such as International Women's Day, the Save Our Schools Campaign and Green Left Weekly.
Her latest series of monologues explores familiar territory. Liberty describes the guilt caused when "everyday life and the strange growths at the back of my fridge get in the way of my high ideals". Equality looks at life in "the wasteland between masculinity and femininity", and Self Determination describes the "struggle to cope with those days when I wake up embarrassed and my personality only torments me further from there". As these descriptions suggest, the pieces look at life in the nervous '90s with a mixture of humour, anger and sadness.
Saleeba's real gift is in portraying situations and feelings that are instantly familiar to most of us, in a way that is original and striking. Self Determination opens with a description of her difficulties in writing the piece that is painfully familiar to anyone who has procrastinated over writing an article, essay or talk.
Saleeba uses other situations such as dealing with CES bureaucracy as a way of pointing out the absurdities and frustrations of life in a so-called free society which makes us feel powerless.
While Self Determination is well-written and thought provoking, it is ultimately a rather depressing piece which perhaps could be improved with
some more of Saleeba's slightly surreal humour, without losing any of its impact.