What Melbourne Loved in 2017, part 10

Today is the last day of the loveds and the SM Best Of 2017 will be published tomorrow. In part 10, Andi talks about being an audience member this year, Rohan talks about music theatre and I find the moments that made me so glad that I didn't stay home and watch TV.

Andi Snelling
Actor 

Andi Snelling

Favourite moments in 2017
2017 has been a unique theatre year for me. I haven’t been on stage the entire year (due to illness), which is the longest time I’ve been off the boards since I was four years old. It’s been a mixture of silent longing and inspiring observation. It’s the first time I’ve really sat back in the hum of the audience and truly taken art in as a temporarily non-practising artist. Three shows in particular grabbed my heart and pumped it for me.

My absolute favourite show was Trygve Wakenshaw’s Nautilus, which I saw in The Spiegeltent at MICF. His buckle-bodied spoof on all humanity’s absurdity had me snort-laughing and light-bulbing equally. I recall him so expertly setting the audience up with fond attachment to an established character or concept, then with great glee and trickery, smashing it before our eyes. His cheeky way of standing beside himself (sometimes literally) in order to highlight our hypocrisy, our injustice and our hope was mimed genius. As a fellow lover of physical expression, I was so uplifted by Trygve’s performance that I wanted to cartwheel myself straight into a rehearsal room right then and there and start conjuring the world with my body.

Another powerhouse show for me was Angel by Henry Naylor performed by Avital Lvova, at Holden Street Theatres at Adelaide Fringe. This was deadly theatre: a one-woman action blockbuster that had you holding your breath and begging for mercy as if you were its sniper heroine scrambling through the charred streets of Mosel. She gave a knockout performance and despite the stage being dressed only with a keg, I swore I could see, taste and feel the bullets flying in that way you do at a 3D cinema, dodging the not-really-there objects. Tears are springing up in my eyes just recalling the tragedy.

I can’t talk about theatre in 2017 without mentioning Wild Bore at the Malthouse Theatre. Of course I loved it. I laughed hard and took my brain to the gym. It was meta theatre that out-meta’ed itself and left you with visual metaphors which only your most trippy of dreams would normally be capable of. I loved how it stretched an idea well beyond its elasticity, then snapped it back in ways you didn't see coming. Witnessing Adrienne Truscott, Zoe Coombes-Marr and Ursula Martinez truly doing exactly what the fuck they wanted to be doing was super empowering. To their credit, they held themselves just as accountable as they did their critics. And all for a very apparent reason.

Other special performance moments for me include: seeing Sinead O’Connor sing half of "Nothing Compares" only to stop and declare, “I am now done with this song”, and the feminist punch-fest Hot Brown Honey that had me dancing and roaring in my seat as if I were back in my early 20s at a student protest.

Looking forward to in 2018
Who knows what 2018 will hold, but I feel great anticipation…

SM: I'd like to see Andi back on stage next year. Illness sucks. To do that, she needs some help. You can help here.


Rohan Shearn
Arts publisher and writer
Australian Arts Review

Rohan Shearn

Favourite moments in 2017
Once again, we were spoilt for choice this year as the commercial and independent sector delivered a mixed bag of delights.

The Book of Mormon kicked off the year in a riotous display of politically incorrect joy at the Princess Theatre, closely followed by Aladdin at Her Majesty’s Theatre, which was not only spectacular,but featured two outstanding performances: former Hi-5er Ainsley Melham as Aladdin, and Michael James Scott as the Genie.

Two Australian musicals made my favourites:
Ladies in Black – the musical adaptation of Madeleine St John’s popular 1993 novel, The Women in Black, made a welcome return to Melbourne; this time at the Regent Theatre.
Muriel’s Wedding  – the musical adaptation of the classic Australian film made its premiere at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in Sydney, featuring Maggie McKenna in her professional debut as Muriel Heslop. Both shows were directed by Simon Phillips.

My Fair Lady dazzled audiences at the Regent Theatre in the Dame Julie Andrews recreated 1950s classic by Lerner and Loewe featuring Anna O’Byrne as Eliza Doolittle, Charles Edwards as Professor Higgins and Reg Livermore as Alfred P Doolittle; and The Production Company surprised us all and with its production of Brigadoon, also by Lerner and Loewe.

Not to be outdone, StageArt presented their best production to date with David Bryan and Joe DiPietro’s four-time  2010 Tony Award-winning Memphis The Musical; and Music Theatre Melbourne delivered a highly charged, sentimental production of Paris – A Rock Odyssey by the late Jon English.

However, it is Taylor Mac and the A 24-Decade History of Popular Music who will leave a lasting legacy on all of those who attended judy's 2017 Melbourne Festival performances.

Looking forward to in 2018 
Dream Lover – The Bobby Darin Musical,  opening at Arts Centre Melbourne later this month featuring the ever consummate David Campbell.

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert returning to the Regent Theatre as part of its 10th anniversary outing in late January.

The critically acclaimed American Idiot rocking the Comedy Theatre from late February.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical featuring the stunning Esther Hannaford at Her Majesty’s Theatre in February; Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London Palladium production of The Wizard of Oz heading at Regent in May; and Mamma Mia! heads at the Princess Theatre in July.

Look out for Virginia Gay’s star-turn as Calamity Jane at Arts Centre Melbourne in March; Maury Yeston’s Nine makes a welcome return to Melbourne courtesy of StageArt in October; and I hope we will get to see Hayes Theatre Co’s production of Stephen Sondheim Assassins, the previously mentioned Muriel’s Wedding, and Evita sometime in 2018 or in 2019.

SM: If I want gossip (and I do,) Rohan is my first stop. I'd be so bored in intervals if he wasn't there to drink a glass of fizz with.

Anne-Marie Peard
Arts writer

The moment I hit peak cat women. A photo of a photo of me and my cats (still have one of them) at the
Gotokuji cat temple a couple of train rides out of Tokyo.

My Best Of 2017 will be published tomorrow.

Favourite moments in 2017
The first "Hello" in The Book of Mormon and knowing that it was going to be everything and more.

The Rabble's Joan when the women fell into the squares of light.

Malthouse's Away when the world changed.

Following Moira Finucane around the NGV in The Intimate 8.

Squealing at a flying condom in Trainspotting.

The costumes in Glittery Clittery.

Laughing myself sick at Trygve Wakensahaw's Nautilus. He was a chicken and a cat and a sheep! I had no idea I was all about mime; I had no idea mime could be so damning. 

Still feeling physically ill during the last scenes of Awakening.

Mary Helen Sassman and Emma Valente committing like no one has ever committed before in The Rabble's one-off Sick, Sick.

Realising that I wasn't going to get a return ticket to Takarazuka Revue (The Scarlet Pimpernel) in Tokyo and a stranger giving me a ticket. She didn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese, but she knew how happy I was to get that ticket and she has theatre karma for life. If you're going to Japan, book for them when you book your flight. It's an all-female company and I still don't know if it's the queerest (including Taylor Mac) or the straightest company I've ever seen.

Betty Grumble making pussy prints in Love and Anger.

Being given a photo in an orange envelope at A Requiem for Cambodia.

Just before Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music began, I wondered if it could ever be what I imagined it could be. It was so much more.
Trying to sing and cry in the last hour of Taylor Mac.
Most All of the hours in between those moments.

The moment Hannah Gadsby turned Nanette onto itself and the bottom falling out of my heart.

Looking forward to in 2018
I'll start with Hir, Abigail's Party and The House of Bernarda Alba.


part 9
part 8
part 7
part 6
part 5
part 4
part 3
part 2
part 1
2016
2014
2013
2012

I'm scared to review: Wild Bore

Wild Bore
Malthouse Theatre
18 May 2017
Beckett Theatre
to 4 June
malthousetheatre.com.au

Wild Bore. Zoe Coombs Marr. Photo by Tim Grey

Wild Bore. noun
1. Those who talk out of their arse, dribble shit and don't understand dramaturgical intent.
2. Theatre reviewer.

It's also Zoe Coombs Marr, Ursula Martinez and Adrienne Truscott's response to critical responses to their own work, and that of others. Opening to a critical contingent of two at Malthouse on Thursday, its verbatim(ish) mash-up of memorable reviews is as much a celebration of arts writing as it is a hilarious damnation of us who write those so-wanted-but-so-hated reviews.

Readers of reviews and critical writing in Melbourne will recognise some of the quoted voices.

But I'm not cunty enough to have been quoted.*

I don't know how I feel about that.

It's really nice to be quoted.

There are plenty of theatre makers who think I'm a bitch. I've seen the letters about my ignorance and know about the quest to get me banned. Most of these criticisms of the critic have been over writing about women's voices, women's points-of-view and how women are presented on stages.

I should have said feminist (bitch).

Wild Bore is mostly about people who write about women with a gaze that makes women feel so fucking special.

It's why these performers continue to make theatre that also encourages critical responses that use less-quotable words like gender, privilege, diversity and gaze. And why that writing can get a bit sweary because we're fucking over having to explain why we're fucking over it.

Remember when Jane Montgomery Griffiths wrote a response to reviews on ArtsHub that questioned a gender bias in reviews about her interpretation of Antigone (Malthouse, 2015)? Grab a snack and go deep into the comments – some are in the show – and know that the ones that were going on in a not-so-public sphere were funnier, smarter and bitchier. Some of us do censor our public voices.

Wild Bore. Ursula Martinez Photo by Tim Grey

This work – which they've been developing in their three home continents while performing their own shows – naturally focuses on the negative reviews and the failure (perceived or willful) of the writers to understand (or accept) the intent of the works.

With their best cheeks forward – the talking-out-of-the-arse imagery is clear –, each discuss reviews of their work that didn't get chosen for their pull quote of adoring adjectives or appropriate number of stars. Having seen the shows discussed, it was confronting to hear only the negative voices.

As artists and creators, do you really listen to those voices? Are the positive, researched, sat-up-until-4am-trying-to-get-the-words-right, you-made-me-feel-and-care reviews dismissed by the negative?

Of course, it makes far better theatre to use the negative voices – and the Wild Bore performances as described by the reviews may be worth the pain of those bad reviews. But it highlights why the bad bad reviews are encouraged, and why the responsibility of a reviewer's voice isn't necessarily considered.

Negative, bitchy reviews with memorable metaphors get read. They get shared. They get clicks. They encourage engagement and conversation. And so writers are encouraged, and often paid, to write more reviews like that.

It's awesome to be read.

It's brilliant to get paid to write.

Arts writers are writers. WE LOVE BEING READ.

Verbose metaphors get read.

Can anyone who read Byron Bache's corn-in-the-poo quote ever forget it? The show (The Crucible, MTC 2013) may have been forgotten, but not that quote. It got him regular paid work; the dream of most arts writers. But despite him continuing with some excellent writing and critical comment, he might only be remembered as the corn-in-the-poo quote critic. Arts writers understand irony.

Those gloriously hideous reviews are read.

They not only get read more than the positive ones, they get a bloody wonderful feminist theatre show made out of them.

 And, shhh, Krishna Istha.

Wild Bore. Adrienne Truscott & Zoe Coombs Marr. Photo by Tim Grey

*Or nice enough to be in nice quotes on the web page.

Time to Talk with The Guardian, 23 May after the 7 pm performance, Van Badham joins the cast to talk about their encounters with critics.

Monash Meets Malthouse, 27 May at 5 pm at  Jane Montgomery Griffiths, Alison Croggon, Cameron Woodhead, Richard Watts and Fleur Kilpatrick join the cast to discuss artists responding to critics.

The reviews

Maxim Boon: themusic.com.au

Alison Croggon: The Monthly

Cameron Woodhead: The Age

Rose Johnstone: Time Out

Keith Gow: keithgow.com

Kate Herbert: Herald Sun

What Melbourne loved in 2016, part 3

Today we hear from playwrights Fleur Kilpatrick and Keith Gow, and Circus Oz's Rob Tannion.

Fleur Kilpatrick

playwright, director, beagle lover

Fleur Kilpatrick by Jack G Kennedy

FK's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: My highlight for the year was Trilogy by Nic Green at Arts House. It managed to be the single most joyful thing I'd seen on stage in a long time, whilst talking about extremely damaging discrimination faced by women for over a century. As a female artist, it posed a wonderful question: how do we talk about the victimisation of our gender without talking about ourselves as victims?

Trilogy was a celebration of the strength, humour and power of women as both individuals and as a community. I left feeling stronger – feeling my cup replenished – and feeling immensely grateful for the women who came before me and changed what it means to be a woman today. Plus, dozens of amazing naked ladies dancing like mad on stage. It was impossible not to beam like an idiot.

My favourite mainstage work was Picnic at Hanging Rock, an outstanding new adaption of an Australian novel. A particular highlight for me was sitting in an audience full of school students during Picnic. Before the show, a girl next to me said to the boy she was with, "I would rather watch eight hours of footage of a public toilet". They then proceeded to scream, gasp and be completely engaged by the work for the entire 85 minutes. At the end, the boy turned to the girl and said, "Oh my heart", as I quietly punched the air next to them and celebrated the transformative powers of live theatre.

My favourite moment of new writing was Kill Climate Deniers by David Finnigin. David stood on stage in a bar and read his entire, ridiculous script, performing every character (all female) and describing terrorists abseiling down from the roof of Parliament House. The audience sat cross-legged on the floor of the bar, laughed and cheered on the story of a federal environment minister with nothing to lose and a killer playlist of house music from 1988 to 1993.

In the midst of the laugher, there was also the totally fascinating story of David's father, a climate scientist, trying to learn how to talk to the media back in the 1980s, when climate scientists suddenly became people the media wanted to talk to and undermine. This was the perfect version of this work. I'm so glad that David went in this beautiful, anarchic direction with the show, rather than placing it on a more conventional theatre stage with a cast and design elements. Plus, the night ended with the dance party I didn't know I needed.

What FK is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: I have the privilege of seeing a lot of readings of new work so, rather than talk about things that are programmed for 2017, I want to make mention of a kick-arse script that I really want to see programmed soon! Jessica Bellamy’s The One About the Two Rabbis, which we read in her living room over cheese and dip. Including the playwright, only four people were present and we loved every second of it. Religion meets time travel as Jess explores the religious stories and traditions that still have an impact on the lives of young Jewish women today. I want to see this staged! Someone please make this happen for me!

SM: Fleur adapted and directed Kurt Vonnegut Jnr's Slaughterhouse Five for MUST (Monash University Student Theatre). It's another great show that didn't get a review and wasn't seen by nearly enough people (although it filled the MUST space). What I loved the most about it was how much the student performers and creators took ownership of the content and its story. I remember rolling my eyes when I saw that it was over two hours long, but by interval I was so involved that I would happily have stayed for another couple of hours. 

If you haven't seen a MUST production, please make it a goal for next year.

Keith Gow
playwright, reviewer

Keith Gow. Photo by Keith Gow

KG's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I am not a performer and I don’t harbour that desire at all, but I’ve spent a lot of time on stage this year and a lot of time immersed in shows where I’ve ostensibly been part of the action. Immersive theatre and audience participation can be a tricky business; pick the wrong audience member and you can sink the good will your show has built up to that point.

I spent time on stage with Meow Meow and Chris Ryan in The Little Mermaid at the Malthouse. I wrestled with Adrienne Truscott as she wrestled with her critics in One Trick Pony!

As for immersive theatre, I was quite taken by the one-person-audience experience of The Maze during Melbourne Fringe; following a woman around the dark streets of North Melbourne was troubling in the way theatre should strive to be. I was also part of a two-person audience for Menage and a three-person audience for Dion.

I think theatre should embrace things only theatre can do. Yes, we can sit in the dark and watch figures under a proscenium, but sometimes that feels no different to watching a film. Some of the audience interaction I experienced was uncomfortable, in a bad way. But some of it was thrilling and, by extension, unforgettable.

What KG is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: The Malthouse Theatre. I’m always keen to check out the mainstage company’s news seasons from across Australia, once they start revealing them in August. I’m often envious of Sydneysiders and their Belvoir seasons. And their Griffin seasons. I didn’t make it to Sydney once this year, but I will next year.

That said, I’m mostly excited for the Malthouse. I’m excited by everything they have on offer, even though I’m sure there will be some shows that I won’t get along with.

How can I choose between new work from Declan Greene or Nicola Gunn or Tom Wright and Matthew Lutton’s Elephant Man? I can’t and you can’t make me. I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time at the Malthouse and in the Malthouse foyer after.

SM: One night during Melbourne Fringe, I waved and called out to Keith from my car as he was at the tram stop and he didn't react. I watched him walk down the street and not react to anything: he was seeing/experiencing The Maze and was so involved that he couldn't be distracted. It was also pretty damn cool to see his first tv script on live to air TV (Sonningsburg on Ch 31).

Rob Tannion 
Circus Oz Artistic Director

Rob Tannion. Photo by Tania Jovanovic

RT's favourite moments in Melbourne theatre in 2016: I have two very clear moments which defined Melbourne theatre in 2016. The first was seeing Patricia Cornelius’s Shit, at fortyfivedownstairs, directed by the amazing Susie Dee. An outstanding, raw and potent Australian production with an outstanding cast of Nicci Wilks, Sarah Ward and Peta Brady. It blew me out of the water, and still haunts me.

The second moment was during the Circus Oz Big Top season in July at Birrarung Marr. We were contacted via Facebook by a good samaritan to see if we could offer tickets up to a seriously ill 4 year old Indy, and her family. It was Indy’s dream to come to the circus, and being able to make that a reality for her was priceless. Her visit and reaction underlined why we are in the arts and the power it has to positively touch lives.

What RT is looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 2017: I am really looking forward to the smorgasborg of festivals that Melbourne has on offer: Midsumma, Asia TOPA, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Yirramboi, Melbourne Fringe and Melbourne Festival… They are like cultural stepping stones crossing my year… I just wish I had the time and money to see everything. Definitely will not miss The Encounter by Complicite in early February at the Malthouse. They are a UK physical theatre company very close to my heart who always pushes boundaries.

SM: I don't know Rob (yet) but every Circus Oz opening night in Birrurung Marr is one of my favourite nights. I love this company; their politics, passion and heart are the voice of Australian theatre that I want to see, in a big top or on the poshest of stages. Circus Oz question the status quo and show what stages, workshops and admin offices can be like when barriers are kicked out of the way and boring choices are rejected.

part 1
part 2
2014
2013
2012

MICF: Adrienne Trusscott

Adrienne Truscott's a One-Trick Pony! (Or Andy K**fman is a Performance Artist and I'm a Comedian
2 April 2015
The Coopers Malthouse, Bagging Room
to 17 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Adrienne Truscott

Feminist comedy that sucks dick in all the right ways.

My review is on The Age/SMH.

2014's Asking for It: A One-Lady Rape About Comedy Starring Her Pussy and Little Else! 

What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 9

And with Bon Batten, Rhys Auteri and me, it's time to farewell Melbourne's favourite moments for 2014.

What I Loved in 2014 will be up on Monday.

Bron Batten
I don't know how to describe what she does, but it's fucking awesome

Bron: There was heaps of stuff I loved this year (contrary to the popular belief that I hate everything), Green Screen as a part of Neon, Oedipus Schmoedipus at Belvoir, Calpurnia Descending  at The Malthouse and Have I No Mouth at the Melbourne Festival.

Credible, Likeable, Superstar, Role model at Theatre Works was bloody astounding and I left the show feeling like I'd been kicked in the chest. Touching, funny, real and relevant.

Other good stuff was Tessa Waters's Womanz, Trygve Wakenshaw’s Kraken at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Dr Professor Neal Portenza makes me laugh a lot and watching Adrienne Truscott's Asking for It and Zoe Coombs Marr's remount of Dave kicking the comedy world in the balls.

And witnessing a small, balding David Sedaris sell out Hamer Hall by literally reading from an A4 piece of paper made me really happy because you just can't predict what people are going to like.

SM: There was the anaconda at Last Tuesday Society's YouTube Comment Orchestra, the look on her face when I told her that I liked Marzo, but it has to be the moment in the Use Your Illusion (NO, not "that" moment) when we realised that the hypnotist was an actor.

Rhys Auteri
writer, musician, possum

Rhys: I wrote a first draft of this and it was far too long, going into too many shows – even after seeing under 50 shows for the year, my lowest attendance for many years. As such, I’ve heard of at least half a dozen shows that sounded like I missed something special, but oh well.

Sisters Grimm’s Calpurnia Descending  again made me suspect that they write their scripts in bold and underline, possibly scrawled in lipstick and adorned with stickers. Hilarious and razor sharp, clever, it indulged in its own delightful vacuity to find surprising moments of emotion and revelation. Its use of live video and other media was brilliantly executed and helped the Sisters Grimm continue to develop the theatricality of their work to match their pointed writing and perfectly over-pitched performances. The image of Paul Capsis climbing a staircase to nowhere, draped in a green screen of lost possibilities was mesmerising.

My highlight of the Melbourne Festival was Circa’s fantastic Opus. Their ability to transform the skills of circus into a touching and vast language of dance was revelatory and brought an array of new ideas to an ancient craft. There were lots of tumbles and lifting and jumping, but these spectacles of strength were presented not for their own sake but pitted towards a higher visual aesthetic of movement. Basically I felt pretty fat and unfit after watching this – I’m not entirely sure this wasn’t their whole plan.

Nicola Gunn once again delighted with Green Screen – playful, engaging, maddening, confusing and crystal clear all at once. Gunn is fearless in her exploration and use of theatrical language to say what cannot be put merely into words. A teacher of mine once commented that great theatre was like a dream, an intense unforgettable experience that nonetheless proves difficult to explain to those who were not present. The image of Gunn riding a slowly deflating thrown of air mattresses seemed at once courageous, ridiculous and omnipotent.

I was fortunate enough to catch Jono Wants a Wife at the Fringe. It was an unassuming piece that really delivered. Jonathan Burns’s confessional solo piece gave a rare glimpse of the vulnerable male journeying from awkward adolescence to heartbreak and often self-loathing – romantic, inept, confused, ashamed and predatory. The woman I saw it with found it a revelatory insight into the male of the species:  “I didn’t realise that men think like that” (or something to that effect). It was a brave, warts-and-all performance, perfect “poor theatre” storytelling.

Melbourne favourites Blue Grassy Knoll premiered their new score to Buster Keaton’s The General. Their ability to transform the crowd into a raucous mess of cheers and boos transport you back to the days and spirit of silent cinema. If you think you might like to get into Keaton – this is the way to do it.

And finally, I caught a few hours of the 52 hours straight improfest that was Little Soap on the Prairie. This completely improvised durational saga featured fantastic character work and storytelling that ran the gamut from absurd and silly to heartbreaking and poignant. It’s easy to dismiss a work like this as somehow “lesser” than similar durational works by “serious” theatre groups like Lone Twin, Forced Entertainment or Nature Theatre of Oklahoma. But this was not merely an exercise of self-indulgent theatre games. The ability of the performers to plumb the depths of fascinating characters, while creating an epic and engaging story was pretty magical. I will always remember the murder of Constance (played by Jenny Lovell) in the final hours of the show. As her murderer crept towards her – hands outstretched to make a gun - you could sense the tension in the performers and the audience. There were actual gasps as the murderer shouted ‘bang, bang’ and pulled the trigger. This moment was about as simple as playing on stage gets, yet it was one of the most powerful things I witnessed this year.

Other shows I loved this year included Therese Raquin, Applespiel Make a Band and Take on the Recording Industry, The Government Inspector, Neighbourhood Watch, Single White Slut, Sex Idiot and Marzo.

SM: The first time the possum hissed in Bucket's List.

Anne-Marie Peard
writer

Photo by Sarah Collins

A-M: Some of my favourite moments this year were in Live Art experiences. There was the small group experience of Yana Alana snuggling into my chest, with six of us on her bed, in In Bed With Yana Alana; asking a stranger if I could stick a label on her and take her photo in Take the Call;  the unexpected joy of making a band with Sam Halmarack & the Miserablites; and writing a very bad poem in bed with my cat for A Day Like Every Other.

But the one I'll never forget is The Rest is Silence: the 4 am encounter at The 24-Hour Experience. I wasn't well and I was so close to going home at 5 pm, but I wanted to go to the forensic morgue. There were no actors: it was just the staff running through what they do when a body comes into the Homicide Room (crime and accident victims) and then showing us how they harvest tissue. And the staff then sat and talked to some of us – at 5 am – about their jobs. It was the most real, fascinating and honest encounter I had seeing arts events this year.

2103 Favourites

2012 Favourites

MICF: Adrienne, Stella and Zoe

MICF

Asking for It: A One-Lady Rape About Comedy Starring Her Pussy and Little Else! 

Adrienne Truscott
28 March 2014
comedyfestival.com.au

Tales from the Crip
Stella Young
2 April 2014
comedyfestival.com.au/

FOMO
Zoe McDonald
2 April 2014
comedyfestival.com.au

As I sat down to write about Adrienne, Stella and Zoe, a fellow-writer posted this on Facebook: "A guy at work just said to me, 'Not to be sexist but I don't like female comedians. They're not funny and all tell jokes about their periods.'"

He said it outloud, to another person.

Anyone want his contact details for a comedy festival date? Unless you're a girl and Aunt Flo's in town,  because you'll just be a bitch.

As a silly girl who only laughs at tampon jokes and doesn't understand proper jokes about beer and blow jobs, I saw some female comedians this week and none talked about getting the painters in. They did talk about rape and discrimination and sex and unequal standards. And still managed to make their audiences laugh.

Adrienne Truscott is best known as a Wau Wau sister. Performing at lots of festivals, she's seen a lot of shows and heard a lot of rape jokes. And she's been told why they are funny.

In many shows I've seen, I've remember laughing at two rape jokes (one by Eddie Perfect and one by The Sisters Grimm). The rest haven't been funny.

Asking for It: A One-Lady Rape About Comedy Starring Her Pussy and Little Else! is Adreienne's take on rape jokes. It was the most talked about show at the Edinburgh Fringe last year.

With wonderful goatee-adding projections, she names those who have made rape jokes and shares their commentary about why people should think they are funny. Because if you have to explain it, it's the audience's fault for being dim, never your fault for not being funny. They also seem to assume that it's only women who don't get the joke.

Based on the joke she starts with, I wonder which performer has already said that it'd be ironic (meaning funny) if Adrienne were raped during her run? And I don't mean "if"; I have no doubt that someone has said this and that people have laughed. I dare you to say it to her. And to me.

It's one thing for my friends to see Adrienne's show – do, she's wonderful and it's painfully hilarious – but this is the show to see if you've ever made or laughed at a rape joke. It's also the show for  comedians who blame their audience when they don't laugh.

And it's for writer Keith's mate, maybe we should just tell him that he'll see naked snatch?

Next I headed north to the Northcote Town Hall where the tampons must be overflowing from the dressing rooms with the amount of women performing .

There's Stella Young's Tales from the Crip. Stella's the crip.

After years of writing, being on tv and compering, she's finally doing her first stand up show.  (A-M, how dare you be so insensitive; Stella can't stand.) But no one can beat her story of a someone asking her to stand up for a bit during sex.

Stella shares stories about the earnest awkwardness she faces every day from well-meaning strangers and total idiots who see difference as an opportunity to show how much they don't notice difference, or to show how down-with-the crips they are. Here's a rule: if you don't like the idea of a stranger asking you the same question or offering you help when you haven't asked, then don't do it to a stranger. And if you have to read a pamphlet with rules about how to treat people, best that you be quiet.

Stella's show is personal with enough distance for her to keep some secrets and is guaranteed to make everyone shudder and laugh with embarrassing recognition. And I will never have guilt about not giving my spare change to Riding for the Disabled collectors; apparently it's not like The Saddle Club!

Also at Northcote is Zoe McDonald in FOMO: Fear of Missing Out. Zoe's multi-character solo show won the Tour Ready award at the Melbourne Fringe and went to the Adelaide Fringe. FOMO has come back to Melbourne as a different show.

It's still about the fear of hitting 30 and wondering why life isn't perfect, but it's tighter, has new characters and has become much more a show about Zoe and her understanding of why she has the FOMO and is terrified of becoming a cat lady. In the first run, the characters were the most memorable (being bloody hilarious), but this time, you leave remembering Zoe.

I nearly didn't go because I had seen its first season, but never underestimate how long runs can influence a show –  and Twitter let me known that I'm not the only person who has the FOMO about not having a Thermomix or an iPad.

So that's three women who didn't make menstrual cycle jokes. Neither did Bryony Kimmings, Hannah Gadsby, Isabel and Rachel or Kate McLennan. In fact, I haven't heard a period joke all festival.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.