The Famous
Spiegeltent.
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| Yana Alana in full flight |
Civic
Square, Canberra, 5th March, 2016.
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
It’ an
overused word, much loved by the theatre cognoscenti, but one impossible to
avoid when talking about Yana Alana. Yes! She is certainly subversive. From the
moment she takes the stage for her opening number, “I’m Blue”, wearing little
more than blue body paint and a huge blue wig, Yana Alanna is definitely
subversive.
She
positively defies her audience not to be offended. But throughout her Helpmann
Award winning cabaret, despite her
constant musing on her mental state, her clever silly songs, and dubious advice
on matters sexual, culled from her latest self-help tome Go Fuck Yourself, it’s
impossible to be offended by this generously proportioned, eager to be liked,
blue cupie doll.
Alana unselfconsciously
prowls around the stage, comfortable in her nudity, frequently interrupting her
long-suffering accompanist, Louise Goh, who, it seems, has developed an
unfortunate habit of answering her mobile phone during Alana’s songs. Alana
eventually becomes so infuriated by these interruptions that Goh eventually
breaks under the constant hectoring and leaves the stage in tears.
Unperturbed Alana
drags up another unfortunate from the audience to accompany her on the keyboard,
then criticises her roundly for her lack of musical ability, before sending her
packing. Reluctantly she apologises to Goh and coerces her back onstage to
continue the act.
She expounds
on the joys of drug-taking, recklessly gulping down vials of pills, before
hilariously demolishing Lloyd-Webber’s “As I We Never Said Goodbye” with a
brilliantly confused, crazily speeded up, stop/start interpretation, sounding
all the world like a demented recording.
She sits on
the lap of another unfortunate, encouraging him to extract a ribbon from her
nether regions. When he hesitates, she berates him roundly. She
performs a bizarre interpretative dance, and even a short trumpet solo. Is
there nothing this girl can’t or won’t do?
Well yes actually! Towards the end of her act, after she’s
trumpeted her anthem, “Life is a One Woman Show”, Alana’s huge blue wig comes
adrift. For the first time we become aware of Sarah Ward, see the real person
underneath. Stripped of her alias, Ward becomes aware of her nudity and
embarrassed, apologises and attempts to cover her body with blue plastic.
It’s was a
magic moment which allowed time for the audience to realise how quickly they
had accepted Alana’s rantings and nudity as perfectly normal, and what a
brilliant, original and surreal performance they had just witnessed. Now that’s
subversive.
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| Yana Alana and Louise Goh |
This Review also appears in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW www.artsreview.com.au