Tim Rogers

Thu 10th Jun, 2010 in Features

Tim Rogers is bringing his new show Saligia to the Adelaide Cabaret Festival this weekend. As the promo flyer suggests “Leave your soul at the door and enter the deep, dark world of the seven deadly sins.” For an early morning interview Tim Rogers is happy to talk all things Saligia.

Are you keeping busy? “Yeah, apparently it’s good for your kidneys!”

Are you looking forward to launching your new show Saligia in Adelaide this weekend? “I’m slightly terrified and excited, it’s the way you interpret theatre really as to whether you’re intimidated by it or not. We had a little run through, which has been the only opportunity so far to get together, on the weekend at a small club close to where I live, which tended to go pretty well. We’ve got some work to do but it’s nice to have that bit that’s left up to the magic of the evening. I think you have to be a little tense and untogether for opening night, of course.”

Do you normally get a little anxious or nervous before these types of shows? “For new things – sure. Something like this you’re out of your normal modus operandi and it’s like doing a scripted piece really. So, we’ve had to toss up whether to scripting the whole thing and making it historically accurate or just go in to a free fall but I think what we’ve got at the moment is a mixture of the two. We were thinking about scripting the whole thing and keeping it tight but I think that would take all the fun out of the thing because it is a hilarious topic to be tackling. Depending on the way you regard the subject you can either be really serious or see the evolution of the concept as being comedic. We definitely see the thing as being comedic.”

Has the idea for this show been floating around in your head for a while? “No, not at all! Melanie and I were on a plane together and we had four hours to kill, so what do you do? We got all cheery and then she threw this idea at me! With the way we both work I’m normally the one who throws the idea in and Melanie shapes in to something, hopefully, beautiful. With this one she suggested the concept and I threw it around. She’s tightened it all up but it has been a true collaboration. It was her idea and I’ll be forever in debt because it’s fascinating and wonderful stuff to write about. There’s been operas written about the same thing, great art work done and great stuff to investigate or ignore.”

It must exciting on the other hand not to be playing your solo material or anything by You Am I? “I’m looking forward to whoever asked me, I kind of got the feeling I was asked as they asked Tex to play last year and that seemed to go rather well. Maybe the thought to get one of our lot and to see what they make of it. I was really surprised and a bit flattered as well as intrigued so rather than do lousy versions of songs of written before to try and do something new. I thought that would be the respectful way to do it and really challenge myself. Unfortunately, the way it has worked as that I’m doing a You Am I record at the same time. My ambiguousness is giving me a tumour.”

Will songs from Saligia find its way on to a CD release at some stage or once these shows are done that’s it? “We have some shows at the Sydney Opera House a month later and I think I might re-tool some of the songs or maybe do some new ones. There’s a lot of material there and if we’re going to get it to a point to record it and get other people to sing it, it’s right for that. Each song has a different character and for me to be singing them, we’ll see how we go on the weekend, it could work perfectly but I kybosh that idea. At the moment I’m seeing a lot of local gypsian folk and jazz musicians just socially – I think the material is right for them to sing. Some of the harmonic stuff does tip its hat, Kurt Weill did an opera The Seven Deadly Sins particularly the version he has Lenya sing on I’d say the vocal harmony tips its hat to that, hopefully subtly. Melanie Robinson sings some of the pieces and it is still mutating and isn’t in its final form yet. By saying that I don’t want sound like I’m using the Cabaret Festival as a vessel as a test. It’s very intimidating to do this at this Festival given some of the other performers, hopefully the best ideas come from it. It’s mutating and hopefully we’ll have something ready to record by Sunday. Maybe we’ll find a studio in Adelaide on Sunday.”

Will the show change much from night to night, especially for those going all three nights? “Great, now you’ve blown my idea of scripting it! I don’t know, because it’s seven musicians and it’s all scored you’re limited in some way because as performers we’ve got a swing going but you have issued this as a challenge – damn you! We were hoping that wouldn’t happen!”

Saligia featuring Tim Rogers is on at the Space Theatre from Friday 11 June to Sunday 13 June. Tickets at Bass www.bass.net.au