SYDNEY FESTIVAL – SMOKE & MIRRORS
SMOKE & MIRRORS The Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park, Sydney; January 13-31. Photos: Jamie Williams.
ONE OF the silliest things I’ve heard, this Festival, is a couple of people solemnly warning, “It’s not La Clique you know.” Well no, it isn’t, and aside from the discrete attraction of the Famous (and gorgeous) Spiegeltent itself, the main reason for being excited about Smoke and Mirrors is that it isn’t the visiting circus-acrobatic-fun troupe. It had become a bit weary by last year and now, is doing a new show in the UK. So maybe we’ll see that next year. But anyway: Smoke & Mirrors is definitely not that other mob and potentially it’s way more interesting.
Smoke & Mirrors harks back to the music hall and vaudeville shows of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Then, city life for most was freakish and tough and entertainers had to be even more so to hold the attention of a probably unruly and unforgiving mob. Comedians were blue, dancers bust their buns, pretty girls were sawn in half, and Burlington Bertie (Ella Shields’ signature song) was one of the gender-bending pioneers – a male impersonator, and one who subverted social class too.
These thoughts swirl around as Smoke & Mirrors gets underway. Created by director Craig Ilott and the show’s star, iOTA, it features some surreal giant rabbits who may or may not be related to Harvey; a great four-piece band led by Tina Harris, an extravagantly false-moustachioed trio of strongmen/acrobats (James Brown, Casey Douglas and Christian Schooneveldt-Reid) and an equally extravagant trapeze artiste whom they chuck about in death-defying fashion (Chelsea McGuffin).
Timothy Woon is a comically sinister looking magician who performs astonishing tricks with birds. I have always been a sucker for bird tricks since watching a very large goose get disappeared and reappeared in a London niterie; and Timothy Woon goes one better. He makes two white doves appear and then turns them into two white ducks. It’s, um, magic.
Todd McKenney and Queenie van de Zandt also appear and disappear and Smoke & Mirrors would be better for a greater input from both. As it is, McKenney returns to his music hall roots with two short and sweet but fabulous song and tap routines, the first an Eddie Cantor sharply sour classic, “The Dumber They Come The Better I Like ’Em”. In his tight fitting suit and white spats, deliberately tatty white make-up and frenetic need to please, McKenney’s performance is rich with meaning and history.
For her part, van de Zandt takes on a role that was, along with dwarves, two-headed calves and other now politically incorrect phenomena, a circus staple: The Bearded Lady. And, even though the thin, curling goatee is fairly obviously stuck on, the effect of it – dangling from the chin of a very attractive woman who’s dressed in a cleavage-revealing gown – is clearly disturbing to the audience (to some reviewers too who’ve been unable to mention it!). Her persona is both defiant and melancholy and her one big blues number is sensational. It’s good to see her not sending herself up for once and performing with all the skill and depth of which she’s capable.
And that brings us to the star of the show, iOTA. He is an enigmatic presence. Part clown, part rock star, part Berlin cabaret queen, part desolate regret and all charisma, iOTA seems on the brink of something extraordinary and is a magnetic and fascinating stage presence. He and Craig Ilott flirt with the dangerous aspects – the grotesques, the physical proximity of the audience, the actual danger of the aerial and balancing acts, the social and sexual ambiguity of the characters and the out-of-time quality of the show itself – a salute to the 90-year-history of the Spiegeltent. Yet it would be good to see the show develop and grow; to take the frissons of excitement generated by the skirting of the perilous and go further. The Bearded Lady – confronting the audience with a fearless yet piteous courage – is the key to the tone, while Todd McKenney’s tawdry bravura is the key to the style.
Smoke & Mirrors is sold out and was one of the fastest sellers of the Festival, but it’s difficult to believe it won’t have another life – and become as great a whole as it already is in some of its parts. Let’s hope.
