Making The Best Of A 'Horrendous' Situation

Sarah Ward’s onstage persona, the histrionic and highly irritable Yana Alana is not all brashness, big hair and blue body paint; she’s also vulnerable. Her latest show, Between The Cracks, explores issues such as mental illness. She has created a work that is provocative, gutsy, and extremely revealing in more ways than one. Before her very first performance of Between The Cracks at Midsumma in 2013, Ward remembers feeling full of doubt, but was eventually met with rapturous applause. “It felt very dangerous, but often that’s the best art,” she says. According to Ward, art and performance that takes a chance in expressing itself fully is “either going to be great, or really bad, and either way, that means you’ve really put yourself out there, and that’s got to be celebrated”.

When questioned on the importance of keeping herself and Alana separate, Ward is quick to respond that, “Yana’s kind of an unhealthy character. I haven’t quite worked out how to be her off stage yet, and I don’t have a desire to at the moment. I think it’s enough being her an hour a day.”

It takes Ward two-and-a-half hours to get into costume, which includes two wigs, plenty of make-up, and covering herself is blue body paint with the assistance of her partner and stage/tour manager, Bec Matthews. “By the time I go on I am so uncomfortable, I’ve got bobby pins pulling in my hair, my feet are scratchy because the heels are so high, my skin is going ‘God, please do we have to put this on again,’ and at that point I also have an earring between my butt-cheeks,” which is used for an early gag. Despite feeling horrendous, this actually works to Ward’s advantage. “By the time I get on stage I am so uncomfortable, and I use that. Yana is a pretty irritated person. So it’s not difficult, it’s almost method acting,” explains Ward.

In the past, Ward has worked with larger ensembles, being the Ring Mistress for Circus Oz, as well as having her own band called The Paranas. Despite the accompaniment of pianist Louise Goh, Between The Cracks is a one-woman show – Yana even sings a song about it. Ward says that working with less people on stage brings feelings of both freedom and vulnerability. “It’s freeing in the sense that it’s a bit loose. We allow it to be what it is every night. If we have a really reserved, conservative, freaked-out audience – which isn’t very often – it does affect the show, and I think Yana gets even more desperate to be loved.”

When Between The Cracks finishes up, Ward will begin performing her new show, Queen Kong: I’m Not Big, You’re Small, with a five-piece female rock band. It explores what it’s like being a woman and feeling small in the world, but also feeling too big. “When I create cabaret, I create from personal experience, I don’t think, what sort of songs do I want to sing, I think, what do I want to say?”