From kitchen sink to stardom
FOR Joanna Weinberg, her love of music was ingrained from an early age, with both parents having been classical musicians.
“My first bed was underneath the piano – literally,” she says with a laugh.
Weinberg’s love for the creative arts quickly extended beyond music to performance and writing. She enjoyed a successful film and theatre career in South Africa before settling in Australia in 1997, where she shifted her focus to songwriting and musical- theatre writing.
But having a show of her own adapted into a movie is “without question” a career highlight above the rest.
Goddess, which was produced by The Film Company in association with Screen Australia, was released by Village Roadshow in cinemas around Australia on March 14.
The musical feature film is an adaption of Sink Songs, a one-woman theatre show that Weinberg wrote in 2003 and performed in small venues in Sydney and Melbourne.
Goddess is set around Elspeth Dickens (played by Laura Michelle Kelly), who has put her singing career on hold to be a stay-at-home mum while husband James (Ronan Keating) follows his dream of saving whales.
His work takes the young family to the southernmost tip of Australia, where Elspeth struggles with the isolation and constant pressure of dealing with twin three-year-old children.
In an attempt to help, James gives Elspeth a webcam so they can speak online, but he’s rarely in range. As a release, Elspeth sets up a webcast site in her kitchen and starts to sing her delightfully funny “sink songs”, which soon render her a cyber sensation.
But it isn’t until city advertising executive Cassandra Wolfe (Magda Szubanski) notices her talent that her life begins to change. As Wolfe whisks her to Sydney to front an international campaign, Elspeth sets up the webcam to keep an eye on everything back home, unaware that she is inadvertently broadcasting her home life to the world.
As Elspeth’s star rises, her marriage becomes strained. And with the couple’s relationship now a top-rating reality soap, Elspeth is left with a big decision to make.
The road from cabaret show to the screen has not been a quick or seamless process.
“It was never the Hollywood tale where I wrote a screenplay and then I got a call from Spielberg,” says Weinberg.
It was 10 years ago that Weinberg invited film producer Andrena Finlay – introduced by a friend – to see the production and she was immediately convinced of the show’s potential to be a movie.
In order to raise funds for the movie, Weinberg “performed and performed and performed”. Revenue raised from live shows, including a number of performances of Sink Songs, went directly towards the movie.
“I was part of the painstaking process of trying to convince people that it was worth putting money into the film,” she says.
Weinberg credits director and co-writer Mark Lamprell for his support, as well as Finlay, who became an executive producer of the film.
“That trio really got this film going. We worked on it for seven years.”
Weinberg had never written a screenplay before Goddess, but says she “loved every minute”.
“If I couldn’t create, I wouldn’t get out of bed. It’s that simple,” she says. “I am very driven internally to create all the time. I write all the time. It’s fundamentally what drives me.
“I tried to put that in Elspeth … as much as she loves and adores the twins, there’s a part of her that just has to express herself. And I suppose that’s what I’m hoping the film will say.
“You can be a mum and you can have an identity, and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
Weinberg, the mother of two teenagers, spent three years completing the script. She also assisted in casting the characters.
“I was adamant that we had to find the best singer,” she says. “Some people were going, ‘Let’s get a big name,’’ and I was saying, ‘Only if she can sing!’ In my head, it’s a musical first and foremost. Because that’s what it was originally.”
Weinberg need not worry – Goddess is oozing with musical talent. West End and Broadway star Kelly shines as Elspeth, while Irish pop sensation Keating slides seamlessly into the role of husband James.
“There’s quite a poppy element that we added to Goddess to make it really accessible and toe-tapping and catchy,” Weinberg says, noting that the tone of the original show was not quite as upbeat and colourful as the film.
Indeed, the subtle shift was made consciously so as to appeal to a wide scope of viewers.
“It will be the largest audience I’ve ever had, by miles and miles and miles,” she says.
“I’m a theatre person; I do cabaret to small crowds. I perform to 200 people, 300 people if I’m lucky. But already over 50,000 people have seen the trailer on YouTube … that’s a pretty scary thought!”
Goddess is currently in cinemas.
REPORT by Phoebe Roth
PHOTO of Laura Michelle Kelly as housewife Elspeth Dickens, who becomes a cyberspace sensation, in Goddess.
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