The Burlesque Question
Can someone please explain the appeal of burlesque theatre? Is it the sleaze factor? The decadence? The chance to max out in frills and fishnet?
Because I get the ‘aesthetic’ – but that’s not enough to propel a story. It’s like saying hiphop is its own reward. Or art-deco is so bewitching, who needs architecture?
Sorry. I’m still trying to recover from The Lobotomist, one of the Top-30 plays from this year’s Short & Sweet. The work is wild and lush and ambitious, entailing a dead doctor, an intern shrink and a femme-fatale patient belting out ten sons in as many minutes – but is there a heart beyond the vibe? Or is style enough?
Your answer here:
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Sharing the bill is a poignant slide show about a dead-end street in Massachusetts – a play called 49 Stories About Brian McKenzie. (The playwright – Greg Hardigan – is the neighbour-cum-narrator by default – a touching REM-like piece, laced with irony and awkwardness.)
Local writer Mark Andrew gives an edgy script in Gravity – an air-crash survivor unraveling in the aftermath. The performance by Ben Starick is mesmerizing, if not a fraction too single-tone. His story is a sick twist on the usual why-me riff. Script and performance are gruelingly good.
(In case you’re wondering, I’ve discovered it’s hard – or naff – to recount a theatre bill without the ballast of opinion. Dammit, I was there, and this is how the pulse reacted. But as a fellow writer, not to say Short/Sweet competitor, I promise to exercise good grace. Any complaints, please see the large bird above.)
On the zany side of the ledger, Cable Car of Death starts with real promise. Three skiers in a doomed gondola…
I’m a fan of Nathan Curnow’s stuff. His A Drop Would Be Something which did the biz in the Melborn showcase was great writing with menace and insight into the pastoral psyche. Meaning I had high hopes with Cable Car. But when dark humour slid into wacky beyond-the-grave humour, I fell out of favour.
Protest by Tom Taylor is Tayloresque – a couple poised on the edge of a larger story. Complete with seeable twist and perhaps a tad too much removal from the scene-at-large to preserve tension. Compare that too his sublime control in The Example, which picked up the bickies in Short & Sweet two years back. I reckon Tom is ripe for the lengthier stuff, now that his trainer wheels have wobbled off.
And while we’re pedalling, can we steer clear of aquaria for 2008? After 2 goldfish plays and now a couple of doomed lobsters in a Chinese eatery (with a neat catechism about captor as saviour), I’m tanked out.
The other play to bite was The Replacement Son by Steven Hounsome. A smart idea and the night’s subtler suffusion of Australianness – that dumbshow heritage of pro-forma family life. At first I panicked for the dialogue’s stilted feel – parents and son sitting at a remote table – and then began to enjoy the darker sense of those rhythms. A cute plot-idea becomes something more for fine habitat touches.
Anyhow, enough entrail picking for this amateur critic. Whatever you tastes – tarot comedy, office revenge, critic bashing – you will find your flavour at Short & Sweet. Even burlesque.
Get your bones to the theatre and see these small wonders, and other lobsters, at http://assets.theartscentre.net.au/shortandsweet/