Bridget Everett – Pound It.
The Dunstan Playhouse. Adelaide Festival Centre.
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. June 9-10. 2017
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Bridgett Everett at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival |
Wowsers Beware!! Big, bold, brash
and brassy, the outrageous, original and diaphanous Bridget Everett bursts on
to the stage, declaring with that deep, provocative voice, ‘We’re going to
f**** up some s***.
I have just rushed from the
Adelaide airport to make the show and I certainly got more than I expected from
New York’s dynamo of smutty fun. Everett is the Siren of Body Pride, flaunting
her voluminous assets in the unsuspecting faces of audience members caught in
the cavern of her cleavage. At other times, she coaxes a young woman onto the
stage to cavort. The unexpected presence of a fourteen year old in the audience
with her mother and father adds grist to Everett’s relentless provocation. With
playful glee, she orders the teenager’s father to the stage while pushing the
boundaries of propriety before the daughter, who shows her own special talent
in a song dedicated to oral sex. What saves Everett from the onslaught of
potential offense is the sheer bravura of her performance and audience participation.
The laughter is constant; the applause enthusiastic and the stoic refusal to
leave the theatre until she reprises her opening number attests to the appreciation
of Adelaide’s sophisticated and accepting cabaret audience..
Everett, the self-proclaimed icon
of fashion, braless and switching from one op shop special to another makes bad
taste her triumphant fashion statement in a show that reveals more than it
seeks to hide in false modesty.. But there is much more to Everett than smut
and a salute to her sexuality. With a voice that would turn coal to diamond and
gravel to rich red gem, she calls forth the pain and longing of the soul from
deep within the recess of her experience, her distant and detached family,
suspected maternal sorrow and deep desire. Beneath her taunting and teasing
titillation, brought forth occasionally by her powerhouse voice, there is a
more serious aspect to her show, caught in a moment of dramatic emotion,
swiftly recovered as she hurls the fractured doll of her wished-for daughter
Olivia into the audience, and then exhorts two men to parade her doll daughters
through the auditorium. Everett is the Sorceress of surprise and shock.
My only disappointment is that
amongst the chat and confrontation there was too little of this performer’s
amazing, soul searching and deeply emotive voice. Too seldom she let her voice
rip with Bounce It or Ge It On. I could have been happily
seduced more by her original songs or self-styled covers than her provocative
threat of shameless audience participation. It was also unfortunate that her
band of guitars, percussion and piano were chiefly employed to improvise
backing tracks to her cavortings. On the occasions when they were given the
chance to show their talents, the Dunstan Playhouse swelled to the sound of
band and singer in tremendous abandonment.
The rebel from Arkansas sweeps in
to Adelaide from New York with a show that will shock, stun and appeal to all
who stand proud in their bodies, appreciate their sexuality and take neither
themselves nor the world too seriously. Unfortunately artists appear too
briefly at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Two shows and Everett is gone. There
is always You Tube. If you have never seen or know nothing of Bridget Everett,
search the web for anything you can find. She is the most unique and original
artist to have performed her style of cabaret at any Cabaret Festival I have
reviewed over the years. Once seen; once heard;once experienced; never
forgotten!!