Rockin’ with rage: Can you relate?
GTA-shot ‘Band Ladies’ covers a lot of ground and generational angst for a 60-minute web series
Toronto-shot ‘Band Ladies’ uses punk rock to get at angst of a generation.
On paper, or in that pitch to a big studio executive, it would seem too contrived to fly.
Would audiences really buy into an eclectic group of five angst-filled, but comfortably-bored women in their 30s and 40s — some buttoned down and financially-secure, others flaky and/or free-spirited — who make a quick jump to punk rock musicians? Oh, and they make that leap from, literally, the restaurant booth where they’re holding their book club meeting, to the open mic stage steps away.
That kind of drastic character metamorphosis typically takes at least a few full regular length TV episodes.
“Band Ladies” attempts it in about four minutes. And get this: it succeeds.
The entire comedic web series, which was shot in the GTA and premiered Wednesday on streaming service Highball.tv, runs less than 60 minutes.
“Tremendously difficult,” admits co-writer, Kate Fenton, about creating a super quick, but believable, story arc. “We tried hard not to focus on the logic holes. But tried to really make the emotional trajectory clear.”
Need to understand how vapid their lives were pre-punk transformation? When their book club chat threatens to steer away from an equally uninspired romantic novel, Fenton’s character, sensible mother and wife Marnie, warns, “Don’t start a real conversation.”
A few bottles of wine later — barely two minutes in web series time — when their taking the stage seems inevitable, big pharma shill Chloe (Lisa Michelle Cornelius) comically screams, “I gotta tell my truth. I GOTTA TELL MY TRUTH!”
And rather than take viewers through the pedantic process of how these unlikely punks become real musicians, director/ co-creator Molly Flood, instead, cleverly points the camera to a to-do list at their first band meeting.
Far down that list: Learn to play instruments. It’s a very succinct way to get to the jokes. And it works. Laugh. Leave. Repeat. It’s not that “Band Ladies” is without a few small hiccups.
The acting, at times, seems a bit more forced than it needs to be — more suited to the live stage than the subtlety of the screen. (The cast, it’s worth pointing out, are all connected via Toronto’s improv and sketch community). But those infrequent scenes are forgiven, because the characters, even the selfishly entitled Stephanie, played convincingly by Kirsten Rasmussen, are so darn likeable.
The characters are also drawn from the writers’ personal experiences. Vicky Kim’s debtladen bartender/aspiring musician, Cindy, for instance, was inspired by co-writer Dana Puddicombe’s real-life tenure tending bar at The Rivoli.
“That was really an important perspective for me, because I worked at the Riv surrounded by comedy and music for years as I was pursuing my own career,” says Puddicombe, selfisolating in her native Newfoundland, who plays selfmade millionaire, Penny. “It offered an interesting edge of being on the inside and looking in.”
Fenton, who attended Etobicoke School of the Arts and dated a musician in her teens, recalls, “I spent a lot of time at the El Mocambo and Lee’s Palace.”
“Band Ladies,” she says, “is like the truest form of my fantasy.”
But don’t expect a collage of silly sketches surrounded by loud, outrageous, three-chord songs. (The cast did write the lyrics and provided vocals to Christian Hansen’s music).
“Band Ladies,” while restricted to short episodes, does a nice job of delving into the genuine frustration — and anger — women of the cast’s generation are feeling. That it does this via punk rock, Puddicombe points out, is fitting.
“As women get older, their 30s, 40s, 50s, their idea of themselves — their voice — well, there’s a lot of bulls—t that’s kinda thrown out. And they’re starting to create this sense for themselves.”
Here, too, she’s drawing on her own personal experience as a performer nearing middle age.
“It’s a time that the voice of women isn’t celebrated as much,” she laments.
“You’re not the ingénue anymore ... (you’re) put in the corner a little bit.
“Punk offered an outlet that was screaming, tossing fits of ... pure emotion and anger ... at looking at your life.”
Band Lady Marnie can relate. “I am a shell of woman,” she confesses in her laundry room, before deciding, hey, “I can be a Mom AND a rock star!”
Fenton can relate, too. The born-and-bred Torontonian — (“I always found my way back here”) — did Shakespeare for five years, pursued a teaching degree at Laurentian University and ran a theatre company with her husband of 15 years. When she eventually returned to Second City following the birth their child seven years ago, “I was really feeling, ‘who am I? And how to do I carve out space that is mine alone?”
Here, Fenton and brings up the #MeToo movement.
“Male misogyny has so much power right now,” she says. “There’s a feeling that I personally possess that I can’t ignore the rage that I walk around with every day.” “The punk music gave us space to address and voice that.”
“Band Ladies” is streaming now on Highball.TV.