‘SAUCE’ : A Conversation with Ashleigh Butler & Claire Imlach (originally published 13 Dec, 2024)
Ciara Elizabeth Smyth’s SAUCE is deliciously disturbing, witty and farcical. Ashleigh Butler and Claire Imlach, the stars of Bare Witness Theatre Company’s iteration of the play, steer audiences through sixty-minutes of unbridled hysterics.
I met with Ashleigh and Claire earlier this week to not only discuss their latest thespian achievements, but to gain their personal accounts of the impact of Canberra Youth Theatre’s (CYT) funding concerns for 2025. Our conversation initially unpacks the performers’ experience with CYT via the Emerge Company program and their perspectives on the company’s decision to cease productions for the upcoming year. On the tail end, we discuss all things SAUCE, from female impropriety to healing deep emotional wounds with absurdist comedy.
Alongside the opportunity to perform a toothsome two-woman show, the actresses’ engagement with Canberra Youth Theatre through its Emerge Company program has afforded them connection with professional actor, writer and director Christopher Samuel Carroll. I asked Ashleigh and Claire how working with Chris throughout the program has been significant to their craft and to the production of SAUCE.
A: “Emerge Company has not only helped us to elevate our performance of characters (and there are a lot of characters in this show), but also our writing, knowledge of lighting, props and set design. Working more closely with Chris in the production of SAUCE has meant a more intense focus on the acting side of theatre. There’s no props, there’s no set. We have been able to pull this huge project together because of Emerge and it’s really awesome”.
C: “Working with Chris through Emerge has been particularly interesting as we are both in a period between working in youth theatre and becoming professional actors. The program allowed us to work in a smaller space with greater opportunities to refine our technical skills as performers outside of the classroom”.
Claire makes manifest that the opportunity to collaborate with Bare Witness Theatre Company and Christopher Samuel Carroll has stemmed directly from her time at Canberra Youth Theatre. The co-stars are prime examples of young artists supported by grants and government funding, with both actresses expressing how CYT has afforded them significant “joy”, “self-growth” and networking opportunities. I inquired further regarding their thoughts on the suspension of productions in 2025 due to CYT’s decreased financial capacity.
A: “We’re both trained as teachers and are very passionate about education, particularly arts education. The Australian Curriculum speaks a lot about social capability and critical/creative thinking, which is a natural element of youth theatre programs. It’s so disappointing to imagine that young people might not have the same opportunities for this kind of growth in coming years. A kind of growth that is so important for adolescents in particular”.
C: “When I moved from Tasmania to Canberra for university, I was really reaching for my community. Canberra Youth Theatre was kind of the first creative community that took me in and allowed me to participate in so many programs that I could gain so much knowledge from. We were all incredibly sad to read that Emerge Company and the Writers Ensemble and so many other programs are simply not happening in 2025. We love Canberra Youth Theatre; we love its values and we love its community”.
Ashleigh also mentions her employment at CYT as a workshop artist, shedding greater light on the potential futures of those employed in the creative industries outside of youth theatre programs. It is becoming increasingly evident that people employed in the arts sector are concerned that their vocations may be hanging in the balance.
She reminds us that youth theatre is the birthplace of nearly every successful performer, stating, “all of your favourite actors are just theatre kids grown up”.
In addition to our discussion on what lies ahead for young theatre makers, I questioned the actresses about the joy and discomfort they found in portraying Mella and Maura – the chaotically unconventional female characters in SAUCE.
C: “We love how this play challenges the stereotypes of what a woman should be. These characters are so flawed, and I think the play very skilfully utilises dark comedy to portray these flaws, the horrible situations the women are put in and their longing for connection. These characters are certainly not your traditional women. The writer has done such an amazing job at formulating real, raw female characters”.
A: “Performing the roles of these complicated women is an absolutely joyful experience. It has been really fun to play with the characters’ narration styles and to provide insight into each of their complex inner worlds, which you don’t normally get with typical female characters. It has definitely been an interesting experience as a young woman to act in a way that would usually be considered gross or impolite”.
Challenging the notion of conformity through unapologetic impropriety is one way that SAUCE forces audiences outside their comfort zone. The co-stars discuss the production’s use of dark comedy as another tool in the exploration of disconcerting themes.
C: “There are some things in this play that will definitely make audiences say: ‘What?’. It’s just so ridiculously funny, crazy and blunt. The use of comedy in the play kind of helps to soften the blow of some of the more troubling themes. I’ve never done anything in the dark comedy realm and it has been really exciting to play with the comedy of awkward moments and how some of those intense feelings can actually be hilarious”.
A: “I think that dealing with some of these ideas through literature can be a comforting experience, rather than just confronting. Being able to see that these things are not unique to you, and that they are maybe even a little bit funny, can take away some of the intensity of the experience. The unhealthy relationships with food portrayed in the show are particularly vulnerable and quite an emotional experience for women. The play provides a new, humorous, and more neutral-to-positive perspective on this idea of food indulgence”.
For many viewers, particularly women, SAUCE may extend permission to behave in a manner outside of what patriarchal norms dictate. The play is an exemplar of recent feminist media that offers different dimensions to femininity and women’s personhood.
If the show had to be sold any further, the stars describe SAUCE as:
A: “Two messy women who steal a lot and lie a lot – and they have the craziest day ever”.
C: “Hilarious, saucy and whack”.
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(SAUCE is showing at Smith’s Alternative from 11 – 15 December before showing at The Butterfly Club in Melbourne from 18 – 21 December, 2024.)
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