MADAME Ironbark and Lady Moonlight will make their debut performance at Lost Highway Bluegrass Music Festival on May 6 when the pair tell and sing their tales of woe from their lives on the run as lady bushrangers.
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The part of Madame Ironbark will be played by Newcastle musician Gleny Rae; Lady Moonlight will be performed by North Coast musical identity Ilona Harker.
“They are two fictitious bushranger characters we have created for the purpose of telling the story of Australia’s better known female bush-rangers,” Rae said.
“We tell the stories of Jessie Hickman, Captain Thunderbolt’s Aboriginal mistress Maryanne Bug, and Black Mary, an Aboriginal bush-ranger from Tasmania.”
While developing the cabaret-style performance Rae and Harker went on the hunt for stories about these illusive women of legend.
“I went to visit Pat Studdy-Clift who wrote the book The Lady Bushranger,” Rae said.
“She is nearly 91 … it’s an historical recreation of Jessie Hickman’s life.”
Rae has also drawn on Newcastle writer Courtney Collins fictionalised version of Hickman’s life as told in her book The Burial.
The performance talks to the circumstances that led these women to turn to crime.
“Most of it came about through poverty and through being targeted by the police,” Rae said.
“It only took one little thing and then ... it escalated and snowballed.
“Our story is about the oppression of women, particularly in that era.. it’s loosely based in the 1920s.”
The story begins when the recently widowed Madame Ironbark goes to the Rylestone races to bet her last penny on a hot tip. Lady Moonlight is also there, she drinks and gambles and ends up being sexually assaulted.
“I catch a local policeman in the act of assaulting her. I smack him over the head with a piece of ironbark and then I grab her and ride off,” Rae said.
The pair make their way to Hickman’s hideout cave from where they tell their stories.
“We are put into a position where we are trying to reclaim our lives and power and the only way we can do that is going onto the wrong side of the law,” Rae said.
“We sit there wondering how we can survive and then we tell the story of the three female bush-rangers through song and some humour. “
The pair have written eight songs which will be performed throughout the 45 minute act.
Lost Highway Bluegrass Music Festival will be held at Karuah between May 5-7. For more information : losthighwaybluegrass.com.au
