On the Couch with Maude Davey

Maude Davey_oncWho is Maude Davey?
I’m an actor and a director. I work in the theatre, that pretty much sums me up. It’s what I love most.

What would you do differently to what you do now?  
I think about this quite a lot. I have achieved pretty much everything I set out to achieve. So when I think back and imagine what I might do differently, it is simply this. I would aim higher. You get what you are able to imagine for yourself, or you become what you are able to imagine yourself being. I wish I’d wanted more, imagined more for myself.

Who inspires you and why?
Hmmm. I’m inspired by people around me more than by international celebrities or movie stars. People who have kept going with dignity and courage and purpose, through the bad bits as well as the good. Ponch Hawkes. John Romeril. Jenny Kemp.

What would you do to make a difference in the world?
That’s a hard question. The difficult thing is that I don’t know. I sign petitions, I recycle, I collect rain water, I ride a bike, I blah blah blah and not a single thing I do makes a difference to the fact that the bees are dying and the trees are falling and the forests are stressed and the reef will be dredged…. What could I do that would make a difference?

Favourite holiday destination and why?
I don’t have holidays, or at least not to destinations. I have a piece of land in the bush near Daylesford where I go so I can look at things that change slowly and listen to birds and wind in trees.

When friends come to town, what attraction would you take then to, and why?
I would want to take them to dinner at The Flower Drum in China Town; walking in the Dandenong Ranges and to Heide. Although more probably I would take them to Tho Tho on Victoria Street (cheaper); walking along the Yarra (with my dogs) and to a bar on Smith Street.

What are you currently reading?
I’m in a re-reading phase. Just finished Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. Now I’m onto What I Loved by Siri Hustved.

What are you currently listening to?
Amy Winehouse, Fever Ray and some bad eighties Australian rock/pop (I love bad eighties rock/pop. Supernought! Hush!).

Happiness is?
Listening to my children singing through all the songs from Frozen in bed before they go to sleep.

What does the future hold for you?
I never know what I’m going to be doing in a year’s time, let alone in that nebulous thing called the future. I don’t know. I’d really like to move away from lurching from one job to another and find some um what’s it called? Security.

Maude Davey trained as an actor at the Victorian College of the Arts. She was a founding member of the theatre/music a cappella group Crying in Public Places with which she toured nationally and internationally with their three shows, Crying In Public Places, Jump! and Skin.

Maude collaborates frequently with Finucane & Smith, performing nationally and internationally in The Burlesque Hour, and nationally in Salon de Dance, The Flood by Jackie Smith and Carnival of Mysteries for the 2010 Melbourne Festival. She works in television and film as well as theatre, and has also worked as a Director, Artistic Director, teacher, writer and dramaturge.

Maude will be performing in a return season of My Life in the Nude at fortyfivedownstairs as part of La Mama’s ENCORE program from 15 July. For more information, visit: www.lamama.com.au or www.fortyfivedownstairs.com for details.

Image: Maude Davey