I’ve managed to get to nine theatrical performances as part of Midsumma this year, which is more than I’ve managed in the past… and although I’ve enjoyed all of them on one level or another, none have wowed me quite like Justin Sider’s Dickless.
Perhaps there’s an element of novelty: I’ve seen drag kings perform in a few places, but this is the first feature show I’ve seen from any drag king. And he did the one thing I love to see drag artists doing more than anything else: their own vocals! But in essence, the wow factor here is, quite simply, balance.
On face value, Justin Sider’s show sits neatly into the farce category… it is light and hilarious, and features a contiguous plot with no extraneous filler or diversion. He maintains a consistent character who is likeable and instantly engaging, and he draws the audience into the farcical scenario—of a competitive lap dancer who misplaces his penis—with witty and relatable humour that is at once crass and wonderful. No small achievement there. But the beauty of this is that it packs (if you’ll pardon the pun) into this farcical story a simple and digestible moral: that it is ok to be dickless.
The resulting affirmation, delivered with a little pathos and lashings of hilarity, is absolutely uplifting in every way.
Sadly, it appears the show has finished its current run, so if this is the first you’ve heard of it, you’re too late… the last performances I can find are in Albany WA… which, frankly, may be worth the four day drive!
Stumbling out of another theatre, again physically shaken by the performance I’ve just witnessed, I am awestruck by the ability of creatives to breathe new life into one of the oldest and most frequently redone stories in the canon. But this one was something extra special.
In Ripped, Gwyther portrays a male rape victim masking his trauma by taking action to fulfill a gender stereotype; a stereotype he struggles to define throughout. Gwyther also embodies the victim’s associates, and just keeping the plot clear is a challenge that he rises to with the deftest of hands.
In the light of the civil rights movements of the last five decades, the various ways to interpret the facts of Oscar Wilde’s life seem almost kaleidoscopic. Even in the two decades since David Hare wrote The Judas Kiss, our perspectives on queer rights have moved so dramatically that material of this age frequently jars current sensibilities. Perhaps because of its subject matter, but probably more because of Hare’s focus on the people he was writing about, the play doesn’t suffer from any such awkwardness.
Landscapes and coastlines reminiscent of southern Australia give this film a grounded feel that exceeds most other depictions of biblical stories. Even the perspective lent to this story by looking at it through the eyes of Mary of Magdala puts me in mind of the strong and courageous women of the Australia Henry Lawson depicted.
Blood, as Stoppard’s tragedian says, is compulsory.
The greatest joy in visiting a fringe festival is being able to wander into a show with little to no awareness of what it’s about. Not every show turns out to be worth the time of day, but frequently they’re as good as Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.
Canberra’s sunsets are a little short for Shakespeare, but the timing was pretty damn near perfect for Shakespeare by the Lakes’ debut tonight.
I don’t like slow. I’m pretty sure I don’t like slow. But this film is slow. And I liked it.
Much of the publicity for Michael and Phillip are Getting Married in the Morning points to the December 2017 changes to the Marriage Act, which occurred between the writing of the play and its staging. Obviously the script was updated to reflect the changes, so I don’t think there really was a need to point them out. The publicity also bills it as a celebration of love, and although it does live up to this, there did seem to be some disagreement between the writer (who seems to have written a comedy) and the director (who seems to have directed a melodrama).
Rarely does a film come along that I can praise without reservation or qualification, but this is one. So much so that it’s barely worth writing about.
First show back in Canberra, and I’m impressed. In a performance that would be right at home as part of the Edinburgh Fringe (oh, how I miss Fringe!), Canberra Youth Theatre present a series of stories that evoke a sense of what it means to be one’s self in the way we relate to others.
A little more theatrical than cabaret, but a little more cabaret than theatre, Royal Vauxhall straddles the divide exceptionally well, and presented beautifully in the pub it was named after.
Having recently produced a show that attempted to draw a bow through LGBTIQ history, I am familiar with the difficulty of having to eschew particular bits of history to get a story across. Outlaws to In-Laws navigates this dilemma quite well, I think.
It might be being promoted as a “British Brokeback”, but apart from an agrarian context and some primal and near-violent sex scenes, God’s Own Country shares little in common with the groundbreaking American epic.
Desperately running out of time to take in everything the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has to offer, I stumbled late into Banshee’s to see Rob Cawsey. Apparently he’s a comedian.
Foyer Talk 