Review: No Regrets, But Molly's Not For Me at Motley Bauhaus

Review by Greg Gorton

No Regrets, But Molly's Not For Me is a very different show then most you will see at Fringe. While there are a few select moments in which we find ourselves watching Madeleine Chaplain “play herself” at younger ages, for the most part we are given the woman herself, seated in the middle of the stage, telling the story of how she went from child on a cattle station in country Queensland, to award-winning film writer and director. The story is told, one lesson a year, with potentially 33 lessons up for grabs. Of course, no one remembers their first years.

Madeleine Chaplain opens the night by coming on stage dressed as a red M&M and does not reference it at all until nearly half-way into the show. There’s something delightful about that. She is pleasantly charming, self-deprecating, and willing to open up a little about her life. She is able to joke about suffering the embarrassing after-effects of alcohol poisoning now that it happened half a lifetime ago. Likewise she can laugh at her first crush, and at least let us laugh about the “love of her life” who she claims is now just a good friend. There are little insights into being in boarding school, what she didn’t learn in acting school, and the realisation that changing cities wasn’t going to solve anything. Jokes are few, light, and harmless - this is story-telling, not standup.

There are moments, like re-enacting having to ask forgiveness of her year eight class, that liven the night a little. There are others, like talking about an early death in her life, where Chaplain struggles to speak and we feel her pain. There is a little dancing, again of the self-deprecating variety, and there is a sense that this actor is doing her best to be herself, as scary as that is.

As beautifully heart-warming this is, it wasn’t a show for me. Perhaps in the same way that the vast majority of smaller autobiographies are not. If I’m hearing a tale I’d hear from every third artist in Melbourne, and it isn’t told in a particularly groundbreaking way, the cynic in me finds little to engage with. My life matters a great deal to me, and is interesting to me, but I have a strong awareness that there is no way I could write well enough for my biography to interest anyone.

Fortunately, I’m allowed to not enjoy this show, because Chaplain graciously lets me. Towards the end she offers one of the greatest lessons she has learned:

“Not everyone is for me, and I’m not for everyone. Being okay with that, that is freedom.”

I’m sure that this lesson, and finding someone you can really relate to, will make No Regrets, But Molly's Not For Me for a lot of artists feeling a little alone with their struggles right now. For a no-thrills story from someone willing to be honest and raw, this might be the show for you.

Image Supplied