Eddie Perfect returns to Melbourne for 9 to 5 The Musical

Eddie Perfect is not used to playing the villain. The prolific actor, composer and writer usually portrays the lovable guy – but in the upcoming Melbourne season of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 The Musical, his character, the sexist and slimy boss Franklin Hart, is anything but.

“He is impossible to like,” says Perfect, who hopes the show will prompt audiences to think about sexism in Australia. “I think Australia has a problem with sexism that exceeds other countries and cities I have lived in,” he says.

“You see sexism at work, in sport and at schools in Australia – there’s something wrong with our attitudes towards women and it’s something that needs addressing in a national way.

“I have two little girls and I know what boys say to them; they’re hearing those sexist comments from somewhere and it needs to stop. Sexism isn’t the same in cities like Amsterdam or New York City – we have some work to do, that’s for sure.”

From playing Offspring’s Mick Holland in the early 2000s to his hit musical comedy show Shane Warne: The Musical in 2008, Perfect has long been a household favourite. In 2018, he moved to New York with his family while he composed the scores for King Kong and Beetlejuice, staying until the pandemic shut down Broadway.

Being able to perform 9 to 5 The Musical with an abundance of crew and actors who don’t need to wear masks is about as normal as it gets for Perfect, who was craving the old way of life.

He too sweated out lockdowns in Melbourne, home-schooling his daughters and trying to find the light in the darkness.

“Connecting to an audience every single night is such a buzz, from the energy and feedback you get from the audience,” Perfect says.

“It’s what I really needed to feel like life is back on track for me.”

The 1980 American comedy 9 to 5, which starred Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, follows three working women who live out their fantasies to get even with their misogynistic boss.

The movie pushed Dolly Parton firmly into the mainstream in America, and she’s now the brains behind the show’s revival on stage, unearthing the storyline for a new audience. Although it’s a screwball comedy, it’s still ever-serious in its portrayal of sexism in the workplace.

In the Australian stage show, the three female leads are played by Casey Donovan, Erin Clare and Marina Prior.

“It’s very much their show and these women are amazing,” Perfect says. “I did find playing a villain super challenging because there is an acting gene within me where I’d like audiences to like me, but right now they need to despise me.”

Working alongside Marina Prior saw him look at his theatre career in a new light.

“Marina fascinates me because I grew up knowing her as a star and have loved working with her,” Perfect says. “She strikes me as a person who is happy to be where she is all the time and that is rare to find. It’s a hard way to be in this business yet for her she’s naturally that way.”

It was while queuing up at a Brisbane bottle shop with his wife Lucy last month that Perfect found himself reminiscing about the passing of Shane Warne, who died in March this year.

While Perfect didn’t know Warne personally, he describes his relationship to the late cricket legend as that akin to a biographer, after spending three years researching and writing Shane Warne: The Musical, which premiered in 2008.

The show won the 2009 Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work, and Perfect says he always felt a connection to the spin king.

“My relationship with Shane is incredibly strange,” he reflects. “I didn’t know him personally, but my show brought me in contact with him.

“Shane had just retired from cricket and was regarded as a punchline in the glossies and tabloid press at the time. There was a lot of moral outrage and judgment from the conservative voices in Australia, and through writing the musical, I felt great sympathy, respect and warmth for Shane and I really wanted to humanise him.”

A week after the show’s debut, Perfect was asked to sing the national anthem at the MCG Boxing Day Test. “I was like, ‘Wow, yeah, of course!’ I was in my 20s and excited,” he recalls. “I was standing in the middle of the MCG and Shane ran up to me and said, ‘Best of luck for the song,’ and he ran off to commentate the game.

“Like everybody else, I found him to be generous, warm and interested – it’s not always that stars are interested in what you have to say.”

While not ruling out a Broadway return, Perfect is content with his life in Melbourne – for now.

“When you start out in this biz, you always have your eyes set on the pasture over the fence and that was me for a while,” he says. “That can lead to a constant sense of displacement and never feeling contentment, but it drives your career, of course.

“I don’t have a five-year plan – never been that sort of guy – but doing 9 to 5 feels very repairing for me. It’s the best health retreat for a theatrical person like me.”

9 to 5 The Musical opens July 10 at the State Theatre, Melbourne.