What does it take to be a good lesbian? For comedic duo Anna Piper Scott and Sophie Joske, the idea of awarding a “gold star” for never having been anywhere near a penis is a pretty toxic one.
Scott is a queer trans woman and Joske is bisexual, meaning they don’t quite fit into that neat little 'L' box, nor do they aspire to be so constrained. Their playfully subversive two-hander Almost Lesbians celebrates diversity in gender and sexuality - in all its many combinations - replete with glitter, lip-syncing, and dance sequences.
It will play the Melbourne International Comedy Festival after a successful run at Perth’s Fringe World Festival earlier in the year. “We have been getting a lot of people coming to the show – bisexual, trans, and all different stripes of queer – who relate to us because they don’t feel they fit in the heteronormative, cisgender world, [who] then go somewhere queer [where] you have to be more this, or more that,” Scott says over a Skype connection from Perth. “Not gay enough.”
Scott came out as trans in June last year, a few months after appearing in Joske’s previous show, Sophie Joske: Household Name. A witty pre-#metoo skewering of the problematic side of show business, Scott played a “typical straight white man… what a difference a year makes.”
After a fair bit of technical failure, Joske, also from Perth but now relocated to Melbourne, joins us on the Skype call. She was one of the first people Scott confided in. “We had already started writing the script, and it had jokes in there that did not make any sense after Anna came out. It was funny because we sort of forgot to edit it, and then we came back to it and were like, ‘Oh, we can’t say that anymore’.”
The script overhaul was an intensely rewarding experience for Scott. “Sophie already knew that my gender was a bit of a question mark, so we kind of went into it with me presenting as someone slightly female and, as we went through the writing process, that was actually helping me with the discovery that I’m almost entirely, but not quite, female,” she says.
“I found it incredibly invigorating, because now it’s like I can actually speak about the things I want to speak about and have a perspective that matters, and I think it made my comedy much more interesting.”
Building on their creative partnership, Joske says Almost Lesbians doesn’t quite fit any one category, “just like us. I’ve always been a bit between theatre and stand-up in the work that I do and it has always been, on some level, about not quite fitting in. We’re just getting overtly queer with it in this show, which is really exciting.”
Joske says she has “relaxed” on her self-confessed early “bisexual militancy”. “I was very intense about correcting people when they used the wrong label or reminding them that while I might be dating a person of this gender, that doesn’t define my sexuality. I’m glad I did that, because I think that’s very important, but now that I’m a bit older and more chilled out about it, I’m like if people get it wrong, it’s fine. At the end of the day, you are yourself and nobody can take that away, so don’t take it too seriously and just have fun with it.”
Which is sort of the motto for their show, Scott agrees. “Inclusion and acceptance; we just inhabit that message by existing. But don’t take this stuff too seriously. I definitely had that happen when I came out. A lot of close friends got very cagey and felt like they were walking on eggshells around me, because they didn’t want to say the wrong thing or mention the old name accidentally, and they would clam up.”
Her advice to them was always to loosen up and have a laugh. “It’s my identity and I care about it, but not so much that I can never find joy in it.”
Scott’s also very cognisant that a lot of the trans stories we do hear focus on the trials faced. “It can be absolutely depressing, you know like some ABC story with slow, sad piano music, ‘they’ve been through so much turmoil,’ blah blah blah,” she says. “Which is true, but it can be more humanising and relatable to have a trans person up on stage making dumb jokes about dicks and gender and straight men, so people can be like, ‘Oh, this bitch is funny, maybe I like her?’”
With Scott joking that if it’s choice between laughing or crying, then crying isn’t very productive, Joske interjects. “Well I’m always up for a good cry sometimes, but not in our show, our show is a good laughing show. Please come. There are serious moments…”
Scott finishes the thought, “… but they are totally stupid.”
Almost Lesbians is at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival until April 8. To book tickets click here.
