Mature Skin by Gabrielle Fallen

This production contains coarse language, sexual references, sex scenes, depictions of drug use, haze effects, flashing lights and loud noises.

Restricted to audiences aged 18+.

Approximately 70mins without an interval

Preview: Wed 11 March, 7.30pm
Opening Night: Thur 12 March, 7.30pm
Community Night: Sat 14 March, 7.30pm
Post-show Artist Talk: Wed 18 March, 7.30pm
Auslan Interpreted Performance: Thur 19 March, 7.30pm

Writer: Gabrielle Fallen
Director: Justin Nott
Performers: Bailey Ackling Beecham and Peter Paltos
Set & Costume Design: Harry Gill
Sound Design and Composition: James Paul
Lighting Design: Emma Lockhart-Wilson
Stage Manager& Technical Operator: Charlotte Fischer
Community Consultant: Māhia Furia
Producer: Zadie Kennedy Mccracken

Script development of Mature Skin by Gabrielle Fallen has been assisted by Melbourne Theatre Company, through the Cybec Electric series, generously supported by the Cybec Foundation.

Gabrielle Fallen (Writer) is a trans Naarm-based theatre maker, writer and performer whose work is driven by a clear aim: to make audiences feel less alone by putting unspoken feelings, norms, and betrayals on stage. Her debut play Mature Skin was developed through Melbourne Theatre Company’s Cybec Electric program, where she deepened her dramaturgical craft and gained early professional momentum. Fallen’s writing draws on influences including Jeremy O. Harris, Jocelyn Bioh, Clare Barron, Nakkiah Lui, Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney, mentor Yve Blake, and the work of Christos Tsiolkas. Described by Fallen as a “rom-vom,” Mature Skin subverts fetishisation narratives around trans bodies, insisting on trans desire, agency, and survival, with love and grit inspired by the women around her.

Justin Nott (Director) is an queer, independent director from Naarm/Melbourne. His practice encompasses new writing, queer stories and visual theatre. He holds a Master of Theatre (Directing) from the Victorian College of the Arts for which he received the Orloff Family Charitable Trust Scholarship for excellence. Justin most recently directed Adam Fawcett's sprawling family drama, Every Lovely Terrible Thing ("a striking exploration of trauma and grief" - My Melbourne Arts) for LabKelpie, and Angus Cameron’s For Love Nor Money for Victorian Theatre Company, named by TimeOut as one of the best shows to see at Melbourne Fringe Festival 2023. 

Other directing credits include his autobiographical work Variations or Exit Music (2022) – ★★★★ - Arts Hub, "striking, raw...and revealing", The Age; Can’t Be Tamed (2018) – “brave, ambitious and a little bit weird”, The Advertiser; and Human_Error (2017) – “a special and important piece of theatre”, Stage Whispers. He was most recently the Associate Director for the Australian premiere tour of musical No Love Songs for Newtheatricals.

Q: What can you tell us about your two characters, Jasmine and Paul? What did you most enjoy when writing each of them, and what are you most excited about in seeing Bailey Ackling Beecham and Peter Paltos bring them to life in rehearsal and on Stage?

Gabrielle: Jasmine is a Melbourne Central sales assistant and Paul is an upmarket fragrance designer, but I’ve always thought of them in fantastical terms. Jasmine is this mischievous, ragtag adventurer bordering on trickster - she’s quick on her feet and she generates her own drama in the club, in the store, in her romantic life. Bailey brings this most delightful mischief in her performance, balanced with occasional sunrays of a superbly delicate, vulnerable energy. If Jasmine is the youth navigating the kingdom’s lowlands, Paul is the wizard advisor to the royal court. He tinkers with his perfumes and potions, he spends a lot of time in his tower, and would rather forget everything that came before. Paul is one of the most fun characters I’ve ever created. He’s lonely, insecure, nervous, but also smooth-talking, easily excitable, and genuinely passionate about his art and action figure collection. Peter takes on all these different provocations, and shapes this character into this hauntingly realistic persona. I’m so excited to see how Peter and Bailey both develop these characters in the room!

Q: What are the ideas you’re exploring about the beauty/wellness industry in this work, and what interests you about how this industry plays into a character’s sense of self? 

Gabrielle: I want to challenge our idea of “good” skin. I grew up with severe eczema and was hospitalised when I was twelve, so I’ always related very differently to my skin than others. Some days my face is flaking off, some days it’s leaking fluid, and I found working in skincare very difficult because the idea of cultivating your skin on such a micro scale made zero sense to me - either my entire body was red or inflamed or itching or oozing, or it was not, and more often than not was something I had zero say in. Popping pimples can be fun. So can picking at flaky skin and ingrown hairs. At the end of the day, you don’t have a body, you are a body, and I’m really interested in how characters challenge or embrace the artificial divide between the self and the skin. How can you be good with yourself? 

Q: What would be the signature scent or beauty product for the play, and for each of the two characters, and why?

Gabrielle: What a fantastic question! For Paul, it’s definitely a resinous designer fragrance - with one wildcard gourmand or chemical note just to make it artsy; tomato, pomelo, gasoline, civetone, etc. For Jasmine, I’d have to say a Morphe eyeshadow palette. One of those big ones you get on sale for $10 that lasts your whole lifetime. When I was a teenager working retail, I found so much joy experimenting with big, colourful shapes around my eyes using every Morphe palette I had. Those palettes were the training wheels for every big Gen Z makeup artist you see today. Truly, the trans kids working in Morphe and Mecca doing bonkers, out-there, experimental makeup looks are the ones inventing fashions we’ll all be replicating in five years. For the whole play, I’d say the signature product would have to be a composite: a high-end face cream mixed with Lincraft superfine glitter (in shade Pastel Opal) to create a DIY body shimmer that beats out anything pre-mixed. 

Q: This is your debut play. Congratulations! Why is being a playwright important to you? And who are your writing influences?

Gabrielle: My goal is always to make people feel less alone. I want to explore aspects of our lives we haven’t seen on stage before and make people realise other people are going through the same thing. The moment when a writer clearly identifies a feeling, a betrayal, a norm, anything unspoken, and you can literally feel your head clear will always be magic to me. I specifically love playwriting because of how messy it has to be - in form, in content, in drama. Some character needs to be starting drama unprompted to get a play going  - who wouldn’t be drawn to that? When I was in Year 12, I started pursuing playwriting by studying every cool young writer I could find online in a PDF or Vimeo Proshot.  My influences were Jeremy O. Harris, Jocelyn Bioh, Clare Barron, Nakkiah Lui, Kates McLennan and McCartney, and of course my now-mentor, the incredible Yve Blake. Later on, Christos Tsiolkas’s body of work became a guiding light for me, and nowadays the biggest influence on my work are the incredible women around me of whom there are traces in all my characters. Shoutout to the HQ girls - I love you. 

Q: The script was developed through MTC’s Cybec Electric program. How did that program contribute to shaping the work into what it is today?

Gabrielle: Cybec Electric was a delight! I learnt an invaluable amount about dramaturgy and playwriting from Jenni, Alistair and Zoey - now I’m able to go out into the world and give notes to collaborators the way that I was shown during that process. Cybec was a blessing because it felt so deeply joyful - Bailey and I were giddy at being in our first professional room, at a mainstage no less, and that enthusiasm was reflected back tenfold by the rest of the team. Additionally, working with Melbourne Theatre Company right before I graduated VCA allowed me to truly launch off into the theatre world. Having this professional confirmation that my bizarre stories were both interesting and viable allowed me to be incredibly confident in my choices moving forward, and made me so grateful for all the nights I spent hunched over my laptop finding free PDFs of plays to read.

Q: You refer to this work as a rom vom, which is so great! What does that mean to you? What are the forms or tropes that you’re playing with / subverting / exploring?

Gabrielle: I’m interested in subverting the trope of fetishisation against trans bodies; everyone expects a story with an older cis man and a younger trans girl to be predatory. But what if she’s making an object of him right back? I wanted to subvert the beauty standard, and make something considered disgusting the ultimate prize for Jasmine’s desire. It was also really important to me that no bodily harm came to Jasmine. In every other new play right now with a trans woman in it, we get beat up to move the plot along. That’s not an exaggeration. I wanted to let this girl be a reflection of the trans women I love in my own life. The girls who are innovators in beauty and aesthetic, who sit down people they have an issue with and talk it out immediately, who wear designer clothes with a circular rip where a security tag once was. I want to show Naarm audiences the infinite hope and grit that the young trans girls of this city have. I’m excited for audiences to experience that.