Salvador Dinosaur and Theatre Works
4 May 2016
Theatre Works
to 15 May
theatreworks.org.au
orchidandcrow.com
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| Daniel Tobias |
The Orchid and The Crow was my favourite cabaret show of 2015.
2015 review.
Since then, it's toured to festivals around the UK, Canada and back home in Australia. It was nominated for a pile of awards and won a few. The original season also won a Melbourne Green Room Award for writing.
The wonderful people at Theatre Works have brought it back to Melbourne for a two-week season. It's really hard for a successful indie show to get another run, so make the most of this. And make sure that it's a huge success so that producers and venues will keep supporting amazing indie theatre.
At 29, Daniel Tobias was diagnosed with testicular cancer; it was bad – and even as he's singing and joking about it all 10+ years later, the genuine concern for his life remains. This show is about his wonderful family and about finding/losing/accepting/questioning faith, belief, culture and gods.
There's the big G god who has a thing for foreskins – yes, it is a weird thing to do to a baby – and the lesser gods and survivors like Lance Armstrong, who beat cancer and won a lot of Tour de Frances. Lance was still a god when Daniel read his book before he had his testicle removed and had chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Looking at what the big G does to non-believers, does it even matter that Lance's lancing of himself was eventually revealed?
The show's slicker after touring and found its structure and its bigger story, but it hasn't lost any of the honesty or personal truth that makes it so compelling.
It's might also be my favourite cabaret show of 2016.
