NAKED By Diana Nguyen

CHARACTERS

Diana Ngyuen (as herself)

Audience (as themselves)

Tom Taylor (as floating voice)

SETTING

Upstairs at the Lithuanian Club, a mostly full, tiny box of a room.

ACT 1: Scene 1

Audience a little frigid to start.

Weather also frigid. A Wednesday night.

This is the second show I’ve seen tonight. I chose this one because it started 15 minutes earlier than the one I intended to see.

Diana Nguyen has just had a nap.

Cue entrance of Diana Nguyen to pop song. She dances a little, stops abruptly, signals to cut the music, looks a little groggy (see note about nap), gets into it.

NGUYEN: (Insert a bit more than an hour of stand-up here. Nguyen is grinning throughout most of the show. Dialogue may vary depending on the performance but should include:

• Funny impersonations of Nguyen’s mum
• Clever observations of the differences between Anglo Australians and Vietnamese – Australians say “sorry, sorry, sorry”, Vietnamese make pho
• Rough topics (grin included) like how Pauline Hanson’s last stint in public life made an 11 year old Vietnamese Australian girl in Springvale ashamed to be Asian, to speak Vietnamese and start following footy
• Commentary on being cast in film and on TV as an Asian in Australia – always the prostitute
• Great airport scene with said good mum impersonation, referencing other good jokes from earlier)

Also includes:

• An average first joke about Q&A, some jokes that land with a wobble
• Some glitchy transitions between sections.

Audience participation (young couple in the front row will obviously be the first to get mowed down). Nguyen offers them an improvised song in exchange.

More comedy, balloons, music, dancing and thrusting.

NGUYEN: I’m going to go put some clothes on.

End show. 

30 September 2016

Dear Victoria,

I saw your show, Les Femmes Sauvages de Dieu, last night at The Meat Market in North Melbourne. Afterwards, I went to talk about it with the security guard but he wanted to talk about Hillary and Donald. I tried then to tell my housemate but his eyes were snoozing. I’ll tell you instead.

Your performance was stunning. The three women you embodied were each captivating. The way you played with sound, with breathing, with movement, with presence, with masks, with gasps, with groaning was masterful. Without dialogue, you created worlds around these women that were lonely and painful and beautiful. In fact, the only parts of the show that felt less interesting were the words in the narrations

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Between the two of us, I am wary of titles in French. I was also wary as there were only five of us in the audience, with a dozen or so seats spare. I wonder what it was like coming out to see such a small audience? It didn’t seem to bother you. As buses and trucks occasionally roared past the venue, drawing us out of your performance, you drew us back in.

With your voice and with your instruments, you made sounds I have never heard before. The space was expansive and there was only one of you, but you filled it.

I know that my brother wouldn’t have liked the show. “I didn’t get it”, he would’ve said. I don’t know if I did either. I am not sure that I was able to link the narration to the pieces. I don’t think that matters much. I was carried through the stories that each of the women was telling. He also would’ve said that it was slow and asked me why you carried that glowing ball through each of the pieces. I am not sure except that there was continuum through each of the scenes and the piece moved at exactly the pace it needed to.

You deserve many full houses.

Warm Regards,

Tom Taylor

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche is a laugh-riot affair, an engaging production that will leave you with a hankering for quiche and some good lesbian company to share it with.

It’s 1956 and the Cold War is at its peak, but even the threat of nuclear annihilation won’t stop the charming widows of the Susan B Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein from getting together and celebrating their annual Quiche Breakfast.

They settle in to devour their feast, but everything is thrown into disarray when an attack by the Red Scare decimates the outside world, leaving the women at the quiche meeting as the only remaining survivors. They’ve done the math: they won’t be able to leave for another four years, enough time apparently for the nuclear gases to become non-lethal.

Do they have enough quiche to feed all 66 members?

How will they repopulate the American landscape without a man, or at least some of his best swimmers?

As they ponder on their very future, and the future of the America they know and love, the secrets they have been harbouring for so long are finally revealed. “I’m a lesbian” they take turns screaming to (what remains of) the world. The Susan B Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein is a proud lesbian sisterhood, and it only took a nuclear attack for it to be revealed.

The sisters are finally free to express their true selves, but is it all too late? The grand matriarch of the society reveals that she is pregnant. Gasp! She has broken the golden rule: no meat, no men, all manners. How will the sisters recover from this scandalous revelation?

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche offers a night of enjoyable silliness – where the audience is left to question the importance of these women professing their lesbianhood, not to mention how such a large group of lesbians happened to end up together in the good old days of McCarthyism. The performance doesn’t seem to concern itself with matters of such earnestness; instead it chooses to engage with the audience and provide a sense of catharsis by having everyone scream at the top of their lungs: “I’m a lesbian.” Because nothing unites like a communal profession of lesbianism.

“Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, but that’s what we face when we’re dealing with improvisation.” Jan Garbarek

Improvisation is an art. It can be a hideously butchered experience if the actors are not skilled in listening to each other or are unable to adapt to their surroundings. But when done well, improv can be a majesty of laughs. The Soothplayers production of Completely Improvised Shakespeare is one such majesty. The concept is as follows: actors take a title from the audience and improvise an hour-long play in Shakespearean style.

While all shows employ the distinctive themes and language of Shakespeare, every play is unique and created on the spot: no scripts, no planning! The ensemble features some of Melbourne’s most well-trained and talented improvisers, including graduates of Impro Melbourne, The Improv Conspiracy, and Chicago’s iO Theatre.

The Forbidden Something was the tale woven when I attended the performance. A delectably delicious platter of tasty witticisms and uncontrollable laughter were offered in a performance akin to that of Romeo and Juliet, but with the warring families of Montague and Capulet replaced by the Florentines and the Macaroons.

A double-suicide climax was all but guaranteed, but the trials and detours along the way were gems of comedic timing and collaboration. The character of Jammie Dodger was a particular highlight; of course anyone with the insight and quick thinking to name themselves after an English biscuit treat in a world of Florentines and Macaroons is to be commended.

The actors remain true to their Shakespearean characters throughout and manage to weave motifs of fate, love and family loyalty into a hilarious performance. Torn ears and shaven beard hair is swept from the streets of Florence; the prince becomes so exasperated by the warring families that he decides to ride into Verona and assume princehood in that region; and the patriarchs of the warring families ride together on the last remaining donkey in all of Florence.

Completely Improvised Shakespeare is a display of camaraderie and respect for the art of improv. The cast are a perfect blend of talent and imaginative quick-thinkers, and abide by the Shakespearean adage: “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”

Bombshells is a standout hit from the 2016 Melbourne Fringe Festival. A poignant, lyrical, and droll exploration of what it means to be a woman.

Written by Joanna Murray-Smith, Bombshells is a play of six monologues each depicting six characters, first performed in 2001. Presented in a new format, emerging ensemble ROARE re-examine the roles of these six different women: the complexities of womanhood are laid bare on the stage for all to witness. A widow, a bride, a mother, a divorcee – these are all women, and while they share commonalities of perceived notions of ‘womanhood’, they are, more importantly, individuals with harrowing experiences to share.

Meryl Louise Davenport is a mother of three, tethered to all aspects of motherhood and wifely duty. Ingeniously, Meryl is trussed to the wall and can only move so far – can only achieve her goals in minute fractions. Her daughter keeps asking about the number of countries in Africa. But Meryl, exasperated, flustered, doesn’t know the answer. This makes me a bad mum, she thinks to herself. “I’m the reason for falling literacy rates. I’m the reason children don’t read anymore.” The frenzied pace never ends, this is her life every day, and as she goes to sleep and awakens the next morning, it all begins again.

Then we meet the Cacti queen, Tiggy Entwhistle, whose speech of adoring appreciation for the cacti turns into a quite-literal metaphor for her strength in the face of being left by her partner. Ruby Duncan’s performance in this role is gripping and nuanced, her artistry as sharp as a cacti’s needle.

Mary O’Donnell and Zoe Struthers are at opposing sides of the experience spectrum – one is searching for glory in a high school talent show, the other is a seasoned artiste who is gracing the shores of Melbourne despite all the odds against her. Mary, spritely and lithe in her leotard spandex, cat-eared ensemble, proclaims that without her the talent show would just be a show because “I’m the talent.” But when Angela McTerry dances to “O’Shaughnessy the cat”, Mary is stricken – she can’t dance to the same song as Angela. So she must improvise – for the show must go on, as Mary knows quite well – and what ensues is a hilarious hip-thrusting affair to the tune of the “Theme from Shaft.” Zoe – the wallowed and whipped diva – delivers a comeback performance that professes the bitch is back, and she’s proved all the haters wrong.

Theresa McTerry is the bride-to-be paralysed by stifling doubt. Does she even love Ted, or is she more in love with the dress? The dress, the dress, that’s all she’s ever dreamed about – with her dress fit snugly around her waist she is Pammy Anderon meets Laura Bush. Her words, not mine. But is that any comfort when she’s walking down the aisle and thinking about everything except Ted – doing the math and deducing she’ll get $215,000 in the settlement; lusting after the vicar, because compared to potplant-Ted he looks like Schwarzenegger. As the question bursting at the seam of her consciousness breaks forth – Do you regret it? she answers “I do” and realises her mistake. She is now a married woman.

And finally, there is the widow, Winsome Webster, who recounts to us a moment of ecstasy and fulfilled longing. Widowed for over a decade, she now offers her services to others, and finds herself reading for a blind man. Inevitably their attraction grows and Winsome, the 64-year-old widow, finds herself naked before him, her only tools are her wit, and her clitoris.

Bombshells is an exploration of identity and belonging. These women are bombshells, who are you?

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight was the night for slammers, spectacle, and simulation. And more than a little silliness. In an event marketed as poets (verbally) slamming it out in boxing gloves, it would be disappointing if it wasn’t.

In the industrial setting of the perfectly-punny Second Story Studios, the audience sits around the centre ring waiting for some serious no holds barred word-wounding in a night entirely encompassing a WWE technicolour retro-grunge look.

And we keep waiting. The wait lasts almost an hour; the audience gets restless. I’m worrying about time, and the stress colours the experience. Finally, Grand Poobah Benjamin Soolah – decked in cape, face-paint, and subtlety-lacking red spandex pants – and referee Anthony O’Sullivan (why does a poetry slam need a ref? He questions. Aesthetics and added humour, of course) take the stage to introduce the night.

The first bout: tag-team poetry! The four poets, two per end, stare each other down. A classic ‘Weirdos vs Villains’ match:  One corner boasts a man in a costume that amounts to “thrift shop Riddler” (in the words of his opponents) who shrieks his lines, and his teammate plays an ocker, entering the stage in gumboots, singlet, and swag hat to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, and begins every one of his turns with “If I were Australian of the year.” The ‘Villains’ have their own Australian bogan in the performed form of ‘Chazza,’ the sloppy, mascara stained feral, with more swag than her opponents hat, who “took a TAFE course in poetry. And FAILED/ took a course in heartbreak and got an A for angst.” Dynamite character.

Her substitute teammate has the stage name ‘Corporate Façade,’ and riles the audience with his capitalist ‘I’m better than you all’ spin.  It’s an unexpected sketch-show start to the night capturing the general mood—colourful excess sold through commitment to WWE and character. Yet the segment goes on for too long, the poetry is purposely bad, and it’s very repetitious, making for a destabilising opening given the wait.

The third match is a hectic performance, as Roshelle Fong versus herself, putting the ‘slam’ into the event. Fong, decked out as a violent Cinderella with a bullet-cased bandolier belt and intense shoulder pads, runs screaming into the audience, literally knocking me about for several seconds in my seat before getting onstage. It certainly is a jolt back into the uncanny aggression of everyday life, the performance a critique of modern dating that literally ends with simulated sex from behind on stage. Unpleasant, but certainly memorable.

The night’s highlight is the twelve-poet battle royale. Here, each poet has three minutes to perform before being scored by judges randomly selected from the audience. Most performances ran on their gimmicks and commitment to costumed character—aviators, ‘The Capitalist,’ a two-face-esque character arguing a poem with himself on stage—or concept—Lyme disease, the Eastlink tunnel, being born the wrong sex. In three minutes, most characters convince, through words but predominantly performance delivery.

My personal highlights place joint third and second: Elemental, who uses pauses, body languages and gestures to fill in words; Peachy, in Jessica Rabbit gear, tackling provocative language with delight: “I’ve already f*cked you/I can f*ck girls better than you,” and Rhea, who is subdued in the costume department but grasps hip hop and threw it at the audience, flowing from Frank Ocean through Beyoncé to Maya Angelou, with thematic ease. Taylor Swift’s “feminism dependent on pigmentation” is just one target among many deftly hit with lingering impact.

The only drawback of the night was a lacklustre handling of time and some occasionally sloppy slamming. But in a night based around being a spectacle with committed delivery, it succeeds in putting Melbourne spoken word on the map in a delight of style over substance and kitsch over class, with some surprising moments of truth and vulnerability.

How fitting that a performance in homage to Miley Cyrus be, in and of itself, an absolute and utter train wreck. Can’t Be Tamed is a show that attempts to delve into the consciousness of the controversial pop star, but in so doing has presented us with a hallucinatory mindscape that has failed to transfer to the stage. The show is described as a ‘psycho-trash verbatim mash up’ by Director Justin Nott, and aims to provide an ironic insight into the life of the pop queen.

The opening scene between a present-day Miley defying her critics sets a feminist tone for the entire performance. This is soon shattered by the pornographic spectre of fame that lingers throughout the show: a man with a black animal mask obscuring his identity. Is he part of Miley’s subconsciousness or is he the manifestation of the proverbial ‘fame monster’? The audience is left to interpret for themselves.

This sinister figure emerges when a young Miley auditions for the Hannah Montana show – he is the one on the couch that will decide her fate. What begins as an innocent Southern, knee-slapping jig (just so we don’t forget Miley’s roots – her godmother is Dolly Parton after all) slowly begins to morph into something altogether more carnal. The sexualisation of Miley begins early – songs by Britney and Beyoncé begin to play and Miley starts grinding and twerking. The masked man watches on, legs splayed.

From here, we shift jerkily between different moments in time: a vehement call from Nicki Minaj lambasting Miley for cultural appropriation; a moment of vulnerability as a recording of Miley’s emotional Pablow the Blowfish washes over the audience; a eulogy of Hannah Montana, paying thanks to the girl who had the best of both worlds; and a particularly disturbing scene of the masked man acting in a fatherly manner before erotically spanking Miley without her consent. Thankfully, Miley gets her revenge later in the show, aggressively dry-humping the masked man against his wishes in a moment of sheer triumph.

We also see the birth of the “true” Miley through contemporary dance. She breaks free from the womb of oppression – a metaphor for the patriarchy of the music industry. It is concepts like these that give pause for thought, but overall, Can’t Be Tamed is unable to tether ideas of female defiance, hazards of fame, and the unjustness of an omnipotent patriarchy into one cohesive show. The attempt to capture the ‘hallucinatory’ experience overrides the potential to explore these themes fully, leaving them as disparate asides rather than focal points of a troubled public maturation.

Perhaps the Miley of old would have adored this performance, but really, is that saying much at all?

Curmudgeonly equation of social media obsession and religious idolatry isn’t exactly a fresh idea. The mere mention of any non-analogue technology in the immediate radius of an older relative is enough to spark cries of ‘you kids worship those things!’ NXT LVL infinity, an interactive sci-fi play devised by Hot Box, takes this tired argument and turns it into entertaining theatre.

Five of the most popular personalities on Youtube, Tumblr, and Instagram are promised the chance to ascend beyond their physical form to a godlike state by a being of artificial intelligence, here represented by a stack of crates filled with white lights. With this level of exposition to get through, the show’s audience interaction is a (cyber)Godsend – until we’re prompted to log onto ‘The Ascension’s app and leave live comments on the proceedings, it’s easy to feel kind of overwhelmed.

Trouble is, between the interactive element and the high fantasy element, there’s not too much room to delve into each personality’s motivations. ‘Albie’, a heavily-filtered #nofilter Instagram starlet, is allowed one stirring scene revealing her driving insecurity, but the Hunger Games-esque elimination of characters means that most of the cast are relegated to roles that are more symbolic than they are emotionally realised.

NXT LVL infinity’s ultimate potential is best displayed when its satire is specific, earning big laughs in its mockery of certain breeds of internet celebrity. St. Bastion, a music Youtuber, boasts of his covers of ‘deep’ songs like Coldplay’s Fix You and Mad World by Gary Jules, and every audience member has likely endured the same kinds of self-indulgent videos in their time on the internet. Memetic recognition like this is initially funny, but it mutates into something more meaningful when the audience’s comments on each performer are projected in real-time onto the ceiling behind them. I can’t tell whether jabs at female characters’ ‘great tits’ and dry commands to ‘kill yourself’ were typed by the cast or by my fellow audience members, but it doesn’t matter either way; seeing the performers obliviously rant at us from the foreground while we rip them to shreds in the background is fascinating, in a car-crash way.

There are times when Hot Box’s skewering of social media superficiality is more general, and these criticisms are less successful. The show opens with each internet personality heralding each point they accrue, barking out, ’Like!’ Follow! Subscribe! Two follows!’ in what amounts to a five-person circle-jerk. A fairly rote depiction of how masturbatory self-promotion works. But thankfully NXT LVL infinity’s obvious affection for sci-fi tropes and commitment to the glittery pageantry on display more than make up for some lapses into ‘kids-these-days’ grouchiness.

Toyol. Orang Minyak. Pontianak. None of these names were familiar to me before Salty, a horror-comedy in three acts which seeks to familiarise Australian audiences with these Singaporean ghouls, and to equate them to such relevant social phobias as parenting and male entitlement. Terrifying stuff, I know.

But creator and performer Shannan Lim inspires only laughter in his audience, regardless of the play’s icky situations. The through-line for his range of characters is an affable apathy as to how convincing the horror of each scene is; whether drinking blood out of a baby bottle or preparing to drive a nail into his girlfriend’s neck, Lim will often shrug, or look out at the audience from under lowered eyelids, as if to say, ‘you get the gist, right?’

The real scares come from moments of unadulterated awkwardness, which manifests through audience participation in Salty’s first act. Wearing a skin-coloured nappy, Lim portrays the servile, Smeagol-esque ‘Toyol’, a reanimated stillborn baby who does its master’s bidding in exchange for human blood. The infant Golem is first introduced solely through grabby physical comedy, but as Toyol is given his commands to head into the audience and steal their stuff, he becomes more conversational. Lim’s easy dialogue with strangers lets us know that if things should get weirder than this, which they miraculously do, we’re in safe hands.

Despite the assistance of co-stars-and-writers Jayde Harding and Tye Norman, the transitions from scene to scene are a little clunky, especially as some of Salty’s props aren’t quick to clean up. After the second act’s introduction of the sinister ‘Orang Minyak’, or ‘oily man’, there’s an interruption of some compelling momentum, since a lot of black goop has to be cleaned off Lim after his comparison of a slimy demon to Men’s Rights Activists and believers of the ‘friend zone’. In this slightly sterner second act, the ‘oily man’ directly quotes Santa Barbara school shooter Elliot Rodgers, whose vengeful Youtube manifesto promising the deaths of ‘stuck-up sluts’ at his university’s sorority houses isn’t much more horrific than the Orang Minyak’s mythological sexual terrorism.

The third story is slightly longer than the first two, and clearly benefits from it; Lim has more room for quickly-sketched narrative and characterisation, playing a squeamish guy and his superstitious mother, who warns her son that his white girlfriend could be a baby-hungry succubus. It’s impressive that Lim can be as commanding in these more realistic roles as he is when playing a bloodthirsty undead baby, and the script’s attention to the cadence of trans-generational interaction is impeccable (the mum sighs ‘I’m at Highpoint buying pants for your father’ when her son calls in a blind panic).

Salty confidently treads the line between mocking these traditional nightmares and recognising them as acutely relevant. We’re coming up on Halloween, and I for one would be stoked to see some Toyol trick-or-treaters alongside the Draculas and Minions and Elsas. Lim’s characters are that full of flavour, be they salty or oily or something indescribable.

Question: Do you believe in love?

Bron Batten has spent months in the lead up to Fringe dating across Europe “for research purposes,” and the results are “bleak.” Centuries of evolution and courtship rituals have been swiped left as technology mediates ‘love’ (okay, unexpected flows of oxytocin) through a screen. A bit lazy for thousands of years of evolution, all things considered.

Batten’s entrance is colourful—quite literally, as she walks through the audience decorated in neon glow-sticks, a bizarre lizard/cockatoo hybrid looking for a mate. I appreciate that she’s not afraid to look a bit silly. The lead-in is delightful, as she details her reasons for conceiving the show with painfully hilarious personal anecdotes, roping in an audience member to describe a terrible Tinder date involving sushi and ‘darkest sexual fantasies.’ Batten gives a crash-course in cultural-historical courtship rituals (Austrian apples under armpits? Like warm apple pie indeed) and male animals that procreate at their sexual peril (did you know deep-sea angler fish fusing to females until they become nothing more than a pair of sperm-spouting testicles?). Bit icky, but you just know some of this information is setting up something special for later.

Batten selects her date for the evening from pre-show audience questionnaires given to those who were up for participation. From a full audience, only three women braved the challenge. Within minutes I’m feeling both regret and relief that I didn’t fill out the questions. Bacholerette number one, Hannah, was an absolute gem. Sitting at a table onstage with champagne, Batten picks out questions—famed intimacy psychologist Arthur Aron ‘guarantees’ these thirty-six questions, will cause connection, and Batten hilariously tests this hypothesis. These certainly keep the conversation directed and flowing, despite my initial worries it will stilt the show. “Would you like to be famous?” “Not really. Maybe B-grade famous.” “In what way?” “B-grade as in on-stage in a Fringe theatre show.’ Moving on: “What famous person would you have as a dinner guest?” “Ozzy Osbourne,” Hannah replies, causing Batten to nearly choke on champagne. “I’m not even a fan,” Hannah adds after a beat. I almost choke on my laughter. But this ‘date’ comes to a close after: “I’m having a great time. But I’ll be up-front and say I’m not into girls.”

A new wooer is selected. Bacholerette number two, Rachel, is just as switched on, although it takes her a while to warm up. One game of Twister, beers on the couch, ALDI chocolate (“don’t actually eat that, I need it for the other shows”) and a fold-out bed later, and the pair are hitting it off quite well in this hilariously awkward onstage context. Helped, of course, by the questions hidden in every prop. “Complete this sentence: ‘I wish I had someone with whom I could share …’” “A bed.” “A bed? I was just thinking one of those buckets full of chicken from KFC.” “I’m sorry; I don’t eat birds.” “I’m getting some mixed signals from you,” Batten quips. “I’m sure there are other things in the box.”

It’s fast-paced fun, awkward in its intimacy, and sold through Batten’s wit. Audience participation glues it all together. Batten has crafted a well-paced, well-structured masterpiece, which thrives on spontaneous responses. Consistently hilarious, and surprisingly vulnerable, Batten’s bravery would win over even the most cynical of audience members.