Katrina Mathers returns to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival after a 23-year hiatus with Anything But the Dyson and Other Excellent Monologues.
Relaying how her long absence came about may be comical, but there’s raw courage in the way she survived cancer, twice, and then chose to branch out as a standup comedienne while experiencing full-blown menopause!
However, there’s nothing maudlin about the content of the show, created by Mathers under the direction of Roz Hammond. Like the harlequin’s motley patchwork costume, the monologue vignettes are pieced together in full colour.
We watch the comic actress’s flawless timing in presenting a woman’s transformation from awkward teenager to afflicted menopausal middle-aged woman to old woman still up to her elbows in housework, while her husband makes it to ‘retired.’
The sketch about the Dyson acts as a centrepiece of the many parallels in the monologues that show how women are ‘sold’ a version of themselves which they neither asked for nor have been invited to co-construct with anyone.
Often, they are ‘gifted’ household goods by their partners. This is the case for her when she moves in with her husband.
The image of watching the dirt fill the clear-plastic container questions the wisdom of what the male-invented world believes is good for her. How has the trendy Dyson benefited her, coming anywhere near releasing her from doing the bulk of domestic work?
There are so many heartwarming stories in this show that I suggest to its director and performer that the production has only just started, and that it should have more development. I say this for two reasons.
The monologues are well-written and, as a performer, Katrina Mathers has great comic timing. Her versatility in changing from one character to another is wonderful to watch.
More ambitiously, the show’s theme of menopausal women has had a tough path in Australian theatre history. I’m reminded how the premature closure of Dorothy Hewett’s 1972 Playhouse production in Perth of Bon Bons and Roses For Dolly, with its anti-heroic menopausal Dolly outraged the public.
Katrina Mathers’ show Anything But The Dyson and Other Excellent Monologues is timely. As the inheritor of wise women before her, she just might have a chance of bringing new audiences to view womanhood in other ways than as a victim of biology.
Katrina Mathers: Anything But The Dyson and Other Excellent Monologues runs to 19 April as part of 2026 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Trainscendence (Black Box Theatre), 5/48 Easey Street, Collingwood Vic 3066.
Tickets: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/anything-but-the-dyson-other-excellent-monologues/
Website: https://katrinamathers.actor/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/katminsky/ and https://www.instagram.com/melbcomedyfestival/
Photo credits: Brent Lukey
