That Time of the Month with Michelle Baggas

I met Michelle “Baggas” Baginski a few years ago when she first appeared on the Melbourne comedy scene, performing an unforgettable song about finding lisps “sthecksthee”. She’s cheerfully late to our meeting, insisting I mention her tardiness in this article, and while we’re here to talk about her latest gig as the first MC of the new monthly cabaret and musical comedy showcase That Time of the Month, I want to know how she got here. Guest MCing a cabaret room in Melbourne is a long way from where Michelle started out.

Michelle picked up the nickname “Baggas” while studying for a BA in Theatre and Film & Television at Curtin University in Perth, her home town. While acting and writing were strengths for Michelle, she “had fingers in many pies”, performing on stage and off: “I was a blood technician for The Scottish Play, which was awesome! Lots of blood. I developed a little homemade recipe. The key was to make it so it could come out of the costumes and off the skin quite easily, without staining. It’s not so secret: peanut butter, Karo syrup, food colouring, a bit of liquid soap… I think the peanut butter is the secret to getting it off the skin, but it could get quite rancid!”

After uni, Michelle “fell into” improv comedy group The Big HOO-HAA!, who perform regularly at Lazy Susan’s Comedy Den, the premier comedy venue in Perth. “The first time I performed with them, I was shit-scared. They called me in the afternoon – I’d been training, but not quite for long enough to be doing the shows, and someone pulled out or was sick or something and they asked ‘Do you want to do it?’ and I said ‘Yeah, okay’ and just…I was cacking myself!”

Michelle performed with The Big HOO-HAA! for four years alongside the likes of Jimmy James Eaton and Xavier Michaelides. Xavier, like Michelle, is one of a number of Perth performers who have migrated to Melbourne, seeking more opportunity and the company of a larger artistic community. By the time she was performing in Melbourne, though, Baggas was doing musical comedy, not improv; where did that come from?

“I wasn’t studying music at uni, but I’d been playing guitar since about year six or seven. My parents brought me back a guitar from Phuket. I was getting lessons with a beautiful lady who was from Ireland, and I’d have to sing as well when I was learning songs. That made me really nervous, I’d have doubts about if I was a good singer. Then I thought I’d do comedy songs, because you can put up that shield. Serious songs take me more time to work on, I’ve got a bunch but I really want them to be superb. While I want the comedy ones to be great as well, I think there are a lot more factors involved; there’s the audience and it’s not opening your heart up as much.”

At this point I had to protest: Michelle’s comedy songs, including “Sthecksthee” certainly seem to involve opening up her heart. Her recent show It’s Not Me, It’s You – a remount of her earlier show 78% Honesty – casts the audience-performer relationship as a first date, with both songs and audience banter that are intimate and personal.

“I’m still developing my style. There’s a concept behind the show; I’m trying to play with persona versus performer, seeing how far you can blur the line. I do bring a lot of myself on stage, I’m quite open and honest, while still playing a persona of sorts, but it can be a bit full on when you’re not feeling that great. How far do you go to put truth into what you’re doing as an artist?”

And this brings us to cabaret. Michelle describes It’s Not Me, It’s You as a “kookaret”, a portmanteau which seems apt. Her persona in the show is nervous, sometimes desperate, sometimes seductive; she makes good use of cabaret’s customary lack of a fourth wall, extending the metaphor of the show as first date as far as possible. That Time of the Month’s producer, Goldele Rayment, saw It’s Not Me, and asked her to MC.

“I’m still learning,” Michelle says about her cabaret experience. “I think cabaret gives you the forum to really discuss some big serious ideas, to ask people to think about them.  It’s a path; I went from acting, then to improv comedy, did some solo musical comedy, and I’m now into cabaret, and I’m excited about where I’m going to end up. I think cabaret allows you to express yourself a lot more, rather than just five minutes of stand-up where you’re just going for the laugh. I don’t feel very comfortable in a stand-up venue; sometimes I hit it, sometimes I don’t, but the level of colour and greys that you get with cabaret…it’s okay to go from funny to those serious moments.”

Baginski’s path has taken her to some very interesting places – she’s definitely still the many pies type. She’s worked in film, with a short, Lonely Soap, screening as a Finalist in the Melbourne Comedy Festival; in theatre, as a performer and technician, including a stint with the award-winning Act-O-Matic 3000; as a musician and actor for lauded artist Gabrielle de Vietri at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. She’s also worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for seven years, and brought many of these elements together in her Comedy Festival collaboration with fellow Western Australian, Zack Adams. So what can audiences expect from the first MC for That Time of the Month?

“I don’t want to give it away!” Michelle says – part cheeky, part very serious – “but it’s something to do with giving a forecast for particular individuals, that’s playing on something that people read every day.”

I left in no doubt that the That Time of the Month audience is in for a treat.

• That Time of the Month starts at 8pm the second Tuesday of each month, beginning on August 11. As well as MC Michelle “Baggas” Baginski, the first show features comedian Zara, comic songsters Luke & Wyatt and enfant terrible of the local cabaret scene, Reuben Krum.

Editor’s Note … I’ve been told The Butterfly Club does a mean cocktail, thus combining two of life’s little pleasures – cocktails and cabaret. Be sure to drop in and check it out.