"On paper it sounds like the most terrible show to go and see.
"But it’s the exact opposite. It’s an easy show to watch. People come out feeling almost refreshed by it."
As the sole performer in the show, Hawkins could be considered biased, but the reviews agree.
"An intimate celebration of matriarchal power, this is one swansong you won’t want to miss," Time Out says.
"This play is incredibly touching, insightful and captivating to watch," Peter Gotting of Stage Whispers says.
However, the Australian actor does admit holding an audience for one and a-half hours can be a challenge.
"Part of it is in the writing. It had to be as entertaining as possible while dealing with potentially heavy subject matters, you know your own life fading around you. It has to balance light and dark."
Those heavy subject matters include death, as the title of the show indicates, but also take a look at how society perceives older women. It is based upon Hawkins’ own friendship with Maureen, an "incredible woman" in Kings Cross.
"But then there were several other women that I really loved — I wanted to do something about them, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. I could see all this character and history, something fascinating there that spoke to a queer sensibility. What is this relationship between this young gay person and this older woman?
"What is that tension? It is real. What is our relationship?"
The work came about when Hawkins and friend Nell Ranney realised they both had similar projects in mind, so they decided to collaborate. Ranney wanted to adapt the book Hearing Trumpets into a play. The story was about vigilante elderly women escaping from a surrealist nursing home.
"We thought what if we tried to work on this together? When it came time to writing it a lot of the big wild things planned for this madcap adventure started to get refined away, the work became quite still and focused on one particular issue, without all of the fanfare around it."
It went from what Hawkins calls a "big complicated mess" to being something very still.
"I’m just sat in a chair the whole time. There is no blocking."
The experience for the audience is as if they have just popped around for a cup of tea with this woman, and she is telling them a few yarns.
"The show is crafted around the most immediate and ancient form of storytelling — just telling a bloody story."
Being the sole focus of the entire 90-minute show is definitely its own skill set, as they "spin plates" to keep the audience engaged, Hawkins says.
"I’m used to being in plays and television where you can be on the stage the whole time but its someone else’s turn and you can hide a little bit; in this form, its an hour and a-half long monologue.
"I’ve got nowhere to hide."
Sometimes when people write about heavy subject matters they could be a bit self-indulgent or saccharine, so Hawkins tried to do the opposite by being as generous as possible.
The show focuses on Maureen, an older, single woman living alone, who has written down a list of all of her friends and the order she sees them dying in. She spends her life going on a farewell tour of these friends to make sure she sees them before they die.
"In that she muses on her own life and the way she wants to be remembered."
She also knows people probably think of her as a lonely old witch.
"She is not one at all. Her life is full. It’s about identity. It’s about wanting to be known. How we let people into our lives, how we respect people and let them be their own person and reconciling death."
Hawkins, who studied acting at the West Australian Academy of Arts, acts, runs parties, DJs and writes.
"All my work is about community and being about how we can be kind in the world to make space for each other, but it contrasts my work in this is the most focused show I’ve ever created, as it is so still.
"All my other shows are about colour and light, disco and dancing, whereas this is a much more mature production for me."
In general, when creating, Hawkins has found the story comes first, then the form.
"I let the story inform how it should be told, rather than this is how I do it, so some things are short films, some things are written stories, some are presented on stage. I love theatre, I love its liveliness."
Hawkins’ career does not follow the regular "linear progression" of many.
"I’ve no idea what I’m going to do next. I’m just going to keep telling stories until I stop. "
It is an urge Hawkins has had since they were a child, always writing.
"I was always putting on little radio plays into the recorder and making commercial breaks. Trying to communicate and express something. It’s always been a big part of me."
Hawkins’ first main stage performance as Greg in Alan Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking received critical acclaim. His work in Metamorphoses, directed by Dino Dimitriadis, at The Old Fitzroy Theatre, also received praise.
In 2016 Hawkins received the Sydney Theatre Critics’ Best Newcomer Award, and in 2014 they got the Burton Award for outstanding Shakespearean performance.
There have been also been appearances in film and television, including the mini-series Peter Allen; Not the Boy Next Door (2015, directed by Shawn Seet), Mr Inbetween and the ABC’s award-winning RIOT (2018, directed by Jeffrey Walker).
"I love it, it is good fun."
A big part of Hawkins’ career has been the disco DJ duo The Dollar Bin Darlings.
"Its also a way of bringing people together and creating a community.
"I think they are part of a healing culture, not just hedonism."
The parties the duo creates are around different concepts such as "Show Us Your Tips", which raises money for the Sex Workers Outreach Project by inviting amateur and professional strippers to perform for tips.
"That night has grown. We can pull a crowd of 500 or 600 people and those people are engaging with each other and then communities are forming.
"I think theatre and parties, what they have in common with each other is getting people together."
While it helps pay the bills, it is also a big form of inspiration for Hawkins.
Another event Hawkins runs is a night of fictitious speeches, where they invite writers and performers to create speeches as anyone in any context — they might do a eulogy or a 21st speech.
"We started that night after Covid and its just got its own audience and it’s going so well. It always sells out. I think before Covid it might have been a harder sell but people really love it."
A key theme to Hawkins’ work is collaboration, something they love doing especially in creating their own work.
"I have the most bonkers ideas. It would be kind of hard to get somebody else to put them on. It means I can do some wild and imaginative things that I’m not seeing in the world."
Having been invited to put on Maureen — which they have performed in Sydney, Melbourne, Darwin and Adelaide festivals — at Wānaka’s Festival of Colour is exciting for Hawkins, as they have never been to New Zealand before.
"I can’t wait. I’m going to spend some extra time searching out hot pools."
TO SEE
Maureen: Harbinger of Death, Wanaka Festival of Colour, Lake Wanaka Centre, March 31-April 1.
