Three Things I Love: You’ll never guess what actor Kate Mulvany digs about Perth

Each week, WAtoday reaches out to the Perth community to discover three things people love most about our coastal capital. Today we feature Kate Mulvany, a Geraldton-raised actor and writer, and Curtin University graduate who has starred in numerous TV shows, most recently Hunters and The Twelve, appeared in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and Elvis, and will also appear in the upcoming feature film adaptation of Paul Kelly’s classic song How to Make Gravy. She has written more than 35 internationally performed plays, including the adaptation of Jasper Jones. A recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia, she now lives in Melbourne but is back in Perth for the opening of Black Swan’s production of her play The Seed, which runs until November 17 at Subiaco Arts Centre.

Kate Mulvany (right) with sister Tegan Mulvany, who stars in this production of The Seed. Credit: Daniel J Grant

First, I love Miss Maud. I came from Geraldton, and so whenever we would come down to Perth we’d make a trip to get sandwiches and cakes; it was like stepping into a fairytale. That Miss Maud Swedish Hotel and Restaurant on Pier Street had windows filled with cakes, like something out of Hansel and Gretel, and I was so determined to stay there one day. I don’t think that one exists any more, but I still go to Miss Maud when I’m in Perth – like Gretel stepping down a forest pathway, but without the witch. I know people go for the princess cake, but I was always a carrot-cake person and theirs is the only one that satisfies my craving. I even dressed as a Miss Maud waitress for a fancy-dress party when I was a kid, you know how they used to wear those little pinafores? It wouldn’t stand now, but I loved it.

Here’s me in Geraldton in my Miss Maud outfit made by Mum.

Second, the gardens of Subiaco Arts Centre. It’s my happy place, I sat there for an hour today. It’s where a lot of my first plays were performed in Perth, and in those gardens you can see actors learning lines in one corner, schoolkids on a trip in another, and people having lunch. And there are so many birds; the bird life in that little bow-shaped garden is incredible, I don’t think people realise. Yirra Yaakin’s Kylie Bracknell once taught me the Noongar names for them all, and I always go and see how many I can spot there. And yes, there is now also a Giant [by Danish artist Thomas Dambo] there, I will have to go and have a look.

Third: Kalamunda, in the Perth Hills. I used to come down to Perth from Geraldton for two things: for chemotherapy at Princess Margaret Hospital when I was a kid [Mulvany suffered childhood cancer suspected to have been caused by her father’s exposure to the herbicide known as Agent Orange during the Vietnam War], and for Christmas. Chemo was not pleasant, but Christmas was, and we would stay at my aunty Jan’s in Kalamunda. There was something so magical about that drive up the escarpment.

Me and my cousin Jaye while I’m on chemo, sitting on the couch in Kalamunda.

Perth would become a little dwarf city in the distance and I would be driving up there knowing I would soon be doing bombies in the pool, seeing my cousins, going to the water park, hunting tadpoles in the creek and getting spoiled rotten and fed by my aunty Jan. When you are on chemo it’s a fine line between chemo and Christmas, and aunty Jan died very young of cancer. Very often when I come to Perth I visit Kalamunda. There’s a little park, Stirk Park, and another one that wasn’t far from my aunty’s, where we would love to go to for picnics. It’s so beautiful. I go, I breathe in the trees, and I remember those times.

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