Martha Wainwright: Come Home to Mama
InReview
Martha Wainwright wears the weight of her famous musical heritage lightly – where others might shrink, this unique performer grasps it with both hands and molds it into something she owns with every ounce of her being.
So it was that the highlight of last night’s performance was her late mother Kate McGarrigle’s final song before her death – the hypnotic “Proserpina”, destined to become a classic.
Proserpina is the Roman goddess behind the rite of spring (when she returns to her mother, the earth blooms again) – and the chorus repeats: “Proserpina, Proserpina, come home to mama, come home to mama”.
The effect is so very poignant.
Wainwright remembers the Dunstan Playhouse – she played there in the noughties with her mother, Aunt Anna McGarrigle, and famous brother Rufus Wainwright – and the memory of that night colours her performance.
No mention, though, of her father Loudon Wainwright III, one of America’s great songwriters (and about whom she apparently wrote the song “Bloody Mother F****** Asshole”).
For those unfamiliar with Martha’s style, she can do anything with her soaring, wavering, whispering, remarkable voice – pop, rock, folk, Edith Piaf, Leonard Cohen, you name it. Her encore is a ripping version of the American songbook classic “Stormy Weather” – like most of her show, her version ranges in style from Chanteuse-style crooning to punk.
Last night’s performance included tunes from her latest album, Come Home to Mama, a beautiful Canadian eco-folk number (“My Mother is the Ocean Sea”), “Tell Me When You Return” by French singer Barbara, an all-too brief Edith Piaf bracket, and several songs by her mother, including another highlight, “I Am a Diamond”, from an as-yet unproduced musical written by Kate and Anna McGarrigle.
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Her band is small and necessarily unobtrusive – bass, drums and keyboards.
In the end, it was a kind of tribute show – and yet, Martha, a shock of bleach-blonde hair made messier by her hands repeatedly running through it, her body twisting in disinhibited ways – owned every moment.
Martha Wainwright performed one show only at the Dunstan Playhouse as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
More Adelaide Cabaret Festival reviews
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Review: Sugartits – so wrong yet so right
Review: Meow Meow paces and purrs
Review: The cabaret charisma of Capsis
Review: Surrender to the Strangeness of Rramp
Review: Chaplin: A Life in Concert
Review: Tom Burlinson’s salute to swing
Review: Shane Warne the Musical
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