MELBOURNE FRINGE 2008
The Undressing Room
Heavens
to Betsy productions
26 September 2008
Fringe Hub, Lithuanian Club
I’ve seen Imogen Kelly’s work around the traps and always
loved it. She grabs burlesque and strip by the tender bits and twists it into something
fabulous, ironic and subversive. The
Undressing Room is her first full-length, solo show, which somehow manages
to turn burlesque and strip in something a bit self indulgent and boring.
The individual strips that Kelly performs within the show are
as spectacularly brilliant as they always are, and there are some wonderful
jokes - but they mean nothing in the context of the piece. When a character is
built around a series of sketches, the sketches need to reflect, support or
contradict that character. Instead of seeing moments of understanding, empathy
and love, I was just left asking ‘why’?
The Undressing Room
is screaming out for a director, a writer or at least some critical outside eye
to say ‘No’. I don’t care about the abundance of technical hitches that plagued
opening night – in fact, they actually helped by breaking the tension and
allowing the audience to comfortably laugh AT something. I do care that this
show lacks structure, character, story and premise.
The concept seems to be that we are watching the performer
behind the stripper - indeed a fabulous and intriguing start. In her dressing
room Kelly’s character chats to an off-stage voice. They discuss the age-old
question of what to call her girl bits. She has to reject ‘muff’, as these days
strippers have to shave and ‘it’ is no longer fluffy. So ‘clacker’ to ‘husband
hole’ are offered, with no real conclusion reached (and the opportunity for a
fringe/minge joke was ignored).
We finally find out that the off-stage voice is her ego (at
one stage, I thought it was her vagina) – which she eventually kills – I’m not
sure why – but her ego disappears in a Psychoesque
shower scene. Nonetheless, even though she is ego free, nothing about her
performances seems to change.
I couldn’t figure out if this character likes her job. Does
she enjoy the power of stripping, does she resent it, is she all exhibitionist,
does she find it sexual, or is it just something she does to achieve her goal
of being seen naked by one million people? As an audience, it’s very difficult
to support her strip performances if we’re worried that the character hates
what she is doing, or doesn’t have any concept of the politics of what she is
doing.
If Kelly performed as herself, I’m sure it would be much
clearer – as she does understand the things that her character seems to have
missed. When Kelly let the character go, there was a much better connection
with the audience and these moments were much more enjoyable.
The best thing about a Fringe festival is seeing the work
artists really want to make and sharing in their experiments, discoveries and risks.
Kelly is a bloody great performer
with amazing material. I’m sure that The
Undressing Room will tighten up as the season continues, but it needs a lot
of work before it becomes the show it can (and I’m sure will) be.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
