Gender is a Scam and I am Winning review (Melboune Fringe Festival)

On the surface, Josh Cake is a man, more specifically, a brown man. And if we want to be even more specific, he is a brown Australian man. But Cake doesn't ascribe to any of that and in his comedy cabaret, Gender is a Scam and I am Winning, they sing and share stories about how the structures of society should not limit you from being whatever you want to be.

Cake has a wonderfully warm presence on stage as he takes his audience through a fun evening of gentle but meaningful reflections and interrogations. He remains focused on the task with a strong sense of humour in both his stand-up routines as well as the musical numbers. There are instances where the material is a bit repetitive but Cake does well in expressing how labels are just labels and can easily be torn off. Not everyone can do this though, at least safely, and Cake acknowledges his privilege in this.

Looking for Tiger Lily review | Yirramboi | Meat Market

Looking for Tiger Lily begins with a scene from the 1960 TV version of Peter Pan in which blonde, blue-eyed Indian “princess” Tiger Lily - played by American actress Sondra Lee - performs “Ugg-a-Wugg” with her tribe. As this screens on a projection, Portland’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi, the “ghost of white privilege”, appears on stage and joins in on the dance. This entrance sets the scene for Anthony Hudson’s (and his alter ego Carla's) solo show on the intersectionality and difficulties of coming to terms with his racial, gender and sexual identity. Hudson is a gay American who is three-eighths Native American with his father being a Grande Ronde tribal member and a mother from Germany.

Hudson’s storytelling is engaging and entertaining as he shares stories of his family and childhood and opening up about his constantly shifting ideas of his own identity. While the space is perhaps too big for an intimate show such as this, he uses it well, giving himself plenty of room to express himself. Hudson is articulate and clear in what he is saying, and his physicality and movement demonstrate his enthusiasm and passion, allowing the audience to be further immersed into his world and gain a better understanding of the issues he is raising.

The Pyramid - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Steph Tisdell wants to be the best at what she does. She wants to sit at the top of the pyramid. With so many pyramids to choose from though, the choice is not that simple and in her new stand-up show, The Pyramid, she looks at ideas behind power, leadership and how to determine where she sits on the pyramid, and which one.

What is extremely endearing about Tisdell is how open and natural she is with her audience when on stage. She is not performing, she is not putting on a persona or pretending she is anyone but herself. This is made crystal clear when on the night attended, she pauses in the middle of a sentence and exclaims “Oh my god, is that Miranda Tapsell??!” and then proceeds to lose her shit over the fact that Tapsell has come to see her show - and we love it. Similarly, her interactions with two audience members who may or may not be related to her go on for a bit longer than they should, but we still enjoy seeing her eyes light up as they discuss people they might know.

The Yonder - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

With our planet about to implode, a lucky few citizens board a spacecraft to take them to safety on a deserted planet. Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Yonder follows three people on board this ship and looks at the tension, affection and horror that eventuates during these trying times.

The costuming is simple yet effective in this show, with the cast donning basic white and silver clothing - different to each other but uniform with their theme. While there are minimal props used, what is used is creative in its representation, particularly the hairdryers and socks as guns and space squid aliens respectively.

While the show has a lo-fi aesthetic, it unfortunately doesn't support the work as it results in performances by Shannan Lim, Elizabeth Davie and Ezel Doruk that don't seem believable with dialogue and reactions that are not always engaging. There are some humorous moments throughout the show which makes use of the trio's experience in clowning and absurdism, including Davie as the CEO of the shuttle company and the romance between Lim and Doruk's characters but none of this ever culminates to anything of note or play a role in any choices these characters face. 

The direction of the show creates an awkward pace with too many silences and the big moments of the show are never played out to invest the audience in the outcomes. There are far too many short scenes with blackouts that constantly prevent you from connecting with the work being performed.

The Yonder - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

No apocalypse ever runs smoothly and in The Yonder, things could not get any more comedically complicated for the remaining citizens of Earth on board a flight to take them to a deserted planet and apparent safety. This collaborative work between Shannan Lim, Elizabeth Davie and Ezel Doruk on the issues of race, identity and migration is sure to entertain at this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival. Oh, and there's also alien space squids.

"The Yonder is the ship that evacuates the last of humanity out from the burning ball of mess that Earth has become. It’s as much a spacecraft as it is a budget airline, and the audience are the passengers," Lim tells me. "Elizabeth, Ezel  and I each play two characters, and they all squabble. Elizabeth is the captain, and the CEO of the shuttle company. Ezel is first officer and an abducted Turkish lounge singer. I am the engineer on board The Yonder and an alien squid baby—I’m really looking forward to this, I think it’s so horrifying and cute."

This is the first time the three performers have collaborated on a work and if Lim has it his way, it hopefully won't be the last. "I met Elizabeth and Ezel separately last year, but we started talking and hanging out and going to see plays, films and gigs. We’ve become very close and will become even closer, I’m sure, from having created The Yonder together," he says. "Part of our process is to just talking about what’s going on with us and the sociopolitical environment around us, then figuring out how to cartoonify that. Elizabeth’s good with structuring the story, and Ezel has lots of playful ideas. They’re both so perceptive and open and committed in general, they’re excellent collaborators."

Identity art exhibition - Midsumma Festival preview

Cultural theorist Stuart Hall once asked, "how much do we retain, and how much do we give up of our cultural identity in order to be ourselves?" In Susan Maco Forrester's latest art exhibition, Identity - and presented as part of the Midsumma Festival - she explores these ideas and looks at how we go about forming our identity and the importance of knowing who we are and where we came from.

While someone's personal identity can often be difficult to define in its most simplest terms, in Forrester's case it is understandable. Forrester is a GLBTIQ woman of Somali/Scottish heritage with her family coming to Australia as '20 pound poms' in 1974. Furthermore, Forrester's mother was also the first Somali woman to settle in Australia. "I have been reflecting whilst installing my show, about how much of my identity has developed from myself and how much has been put on me, so to speak," she explains. "Growing up I had often felt like I lived on the fringe, not really wholly belonging to Western or African cultures. What I have found interesting, is that in my experience, identity is not something that Anglo Australians think about in describing themselves."

"Identity is a concept that is thought of for others, so for someone like me, of mixed Celtic and African heritage, who lives in Western society, often it is only my African heritage that  is seen as my identity. However, already being used to being a fringe dweller really helped me when i 'came out', so I guess my idea of my identity has been formed by and strengthened by living on the edge of, and having one foot in a few camps."