Shades of Mediocrity

Lily Levinson is tall with curly ginger hair. Maeve Campbell is short with dark hair. Maeve is a creative genius. Lily looks pretty good in a waistcoat. Sound familiar?

Using the stories of Simon & Garfunkel and Campbell & Levinson, Shades of Mediocrity proposes that the cult of genius excludes women. It’s a show inspired by feeling frustrated and lacking the confidence to contribute to artistic conversations. When Simon & Garfunkel reluctantly reunited in 1981, after a nine-year break, they performed in New York’s Central Park to 500,000 people, the largest concert audience the world had ever seen. Maeve and Lily would be happy to perform to 50 people.

Shades of Mediocrity is about the compromises that women make in realising their artistic ambitions, and about making art with your friends. Lily and Maeve (Good Friends For A Lifetime) attempt lip-syncing, New York accents and juggling to examine the ways in which women artists present themselves to their (un)adoring audiences.