SYDNEY FESTIVAL - LITTLE MATCH GIRL
MEOW MEOW'S LITTLE MATCH GIRL, The Famous Spiegeltent, Honda Festival Garden, Hyde Park, Sydney; 5-29 January 2012; photos by Prudence Upton.
DO YOU have a torch app on your mobile phone? If so, be prepared to be dragooned into assisting the performance artist known as Meow Meow, or suffer the consequences. It's hard to imagine anyone resisting her demands, blandishments, charms - whichever she decides to turn on you - but nevertheless, it's all part of the shock and awe of her theatre. It could all so easily go horribly wrong, falling flat or going awry if her adventures on the precipice of performing life take a step too far.
Meow Meow pushes the boundaries with the wide-eyed naivete that masks extreme bravado: the show begins conventionally enough, but then suddenly there's a bang and the lights go out – the power's blown. She improvises with matches, but they're unsatisfactory, hence the call for phones and, eventually, torches. This is one little match girl who has no intention of being abandoned by heedless passers by.
This show started out as a Christmas cabaret act in New York then, with the close collaboration of musical director Iain Grandage and Malthouse Theatre's artistic director Marion Potts, morphed into a smash hit at the Malthouse Merlyn Theatre late last year. And, while the Hans Andersen fairy tale might have provided the original riff, that tune was long ago overlaid by other ideas and influences. Music ranges across numbers from such diverse sources as Megan Washington, an aria from Tannhauser (Richard Wagner), Laurie Anderson and most piquantly, Noel Coward.
With the unlikely assistance of a hapless fanboy found in the audience who amazingly turns into the multi-talented and equally fearless Mitchell Butel, the show is a balancing act that teeters on the thrilling edge of disaster, hilarity, poignancy, seriousness and finally, rivetingly exhilarating entertainment. It was one of the Festival's early hot buzz sell-outs and its transfer from the Merlyn's large theatre space to the close confines of the Spiegeltent has done nothing but enhance the legend.
If you loved Meow Meow before, you'll love her even more after this; she's such a clever puss and with the sure hand of Marion Potts in the background it's easy to see what more we can expect in the future.
