Elouise Eftos on developing her on-stage image: 'I’d wear what I wore on a night out'
With the second instalment of her comedy trilogy, Elouise Eftos is finding mythological inspiration in Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. The Aussie comic chats to Jay Richardson about calling out toxic masculinity, the healing power of the dance floor and finding love elusive
True to type, Elouise Eftos greets me huskily. With afternoon fast approaching, the Australian comic, whose act flirtily affirms that you can be sexy and funny, isn’t long woken up. But it turns out she just hasn’t been disciplined enough in steaming her vocal chords; and she’s ‘having a bit too much fun’ with the friends she’s staying with in Edinburgh.
A ‘perfectionist’ from her musical theatre training, she’s constantly tweaking and tightening up her camply chic show, Aphrodite, adding lines as ‘art imitates life’. Before her Fringe debut last year, the teasingly provocative Australia’s First Attractive Comedian, she’d had low expectations ‘because everyone told me how hard it would be’. Yet she justified her haughty onstage smoulder with a dream run, scooping an Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer nomination and booking an international tour.
But the 33-year-old also attracted an older British comedian and became, to her subsequent horror, a ‘trophy’ conquest for him. This year’s Festival may be defined by female comics exposing the toxicity of their male counterparts. ‘It’s at the centre of what people are talking about, calling out bad behaviour,’ Eftos acknowledges.
Still, she’s trying hard to not make it ‘men are shit, fuck them all!’, she promises. ‘There are definitely moments of that. But I counterbalance it with my belief in men, that they can change. They can be shit regardless of occupation. Comedians just tend to have not been very cool in school, myself included. So they act out, ego takes over and they treat people as if they’re disposable.’ With so much discussion of the manosphere and seeming carte blanche for so many predators, Eftos believes ‘it’s really important we talk about this… but this has been talked about since ancient Greece.’
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Growing up second generation Greek-Macedonian in Perth, Australia, Eftos was routinely mocked for her background but belatedly connected with it through classical myth. ‘There was something about these powerful female goddesses in those books.’ Aphrodite charts the journey in female emancipation travelled by her grandmother and through to herself. Dancing from the age of three, Eftos graduated to musical theatre before becoming a showgirl, ‘where I found power and sexuality’. While studying acting, she MC’d in burlesque and hit upon the voice of her persona: ‘Very high status. But, and I hate to use this word, a bit more “bimbo”.’
She transitioned to the stand-up open mic circuit in 2017. There, she still dressed sexily. Then glamorously and outrageously sexily. ‘Because people freaked out, it made me want to do it more,’ she recalls. ‘I’d wear what I wore on a night out. And because these comedy clubs were cold, you could see my nipples. And that would freak people out more. The heels, the little dress; that’s where all the material came from.’
Debating with her goddess of love alter ego, Aphrodite shares the fact that Eftos has never been in love and perhaps doesn’t believe in the concept. Even so, it’s obvious to her ‘that if Aphrodite existed and were around today, she’d be in a discotheque’. Whereas Australia’s First Attractive Comedian channelled the 1960’s sex kitten allure of Raquel Welch and fembot pout of Barbarella, its follow-up conveys Mount Olympus to Studio 54, featuring the seductive disco of Donna Summer, Marvin Gaye and Teddy Pendergrass.
Indeed, an early draft had Eftos denouncing Disco Demolition Day, the infamous 1979 incident when a Chicago DJ blew up a crate of records at a baseball game. ‘Which was so clearly about records with black people on the cover. About hate towards women, hate towards people of colour, hate towards gay people,’ she seethes.
‘With the rise of the manosphere, conservatism and this whole male loneliness epidemic bullshit, it feels as if it’s happening again. But everyone finding love on the dance floor, that’s what great music makes you feel. Donna Summer was all about women’s pleasure. Ring my bell. Men would wear these tight suits and they’d be dancing too. When I talk about men being scared to dance now, that was such a revelation for me because I’m just such a lover of it.’
Happily, the erstwhile dance teacher has found that Fringe audiences are feeling the vibe. ‘Men are coming up on stage to dance with me, which is cute. I didn’t only want to make this show more personal, allow myself to drop the armour a bit. I’m talking about men struggling. I’ve had lots of them messaging to say they feel the same way or want to be better. At the show, they’ve had the courage to dance. And I’ve had them crying. I need to believe that men can be better. Otherwise what a sad reality for straight women. Will I ever find love? Will this horrible epidemic of women being killed every day slow down, or what?’
Already plotting her next hour, the 1980s-set third show in the trilogy, which she speculates might be about performance and feature Scarface-era Al Pacino, Miami Vice and Wall Street on the metaphorical moodboard, Eftos has moved to London and wants to keep teaching dance alongside comedy. ‘I’m very soft and anxious and can be very sweet,’ she reflects. ‘I’m not like I am on stage all the time. I wish I was because I would be unstoppable.’ And although she’s yet to be set up with anyone off the back of Aphrodite, she has had audience members asking her out. ‘Shooting their shot, which is flattering and nice. They’re meeting my vulnerability with theirs.’
Elouise Eftos: Aphrodite, Pleasance Dome, until 30 August, 8.10pm; Australia’s First Attractive Comedian, Gilded Balloon Museum, 22, 27 August, 10.30pm; main picture: Ashley Mar.