Written by
Queenie van de Zandt and Peter J. Casey
Presented by
Neil Gooding Productions and Amazon Woman Enterprises
The
Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, 28th Feb and 1st March
Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
There was
more than a hint of nostalgia surrounding Queenie Van de Zandt’s decision to
premiere her latest show, “Parting the Red Curtains” at The Q, just a few
hundred metres from the long gone School of Arts Café, where in 1988, more than
30 years ago, as a school girl, she made her first professional appearances in
a show called “The Essential Lloyd Webber” with Bronwyn Mulcahy and Peter J.
Casey. Casey is the co-writer of this current show.
All went on
to have substantial professional careers in entertainment, and while Queenie
has appeared in any number of major musicals and established herself as one of
the finest vocalists in the country, it is as her alter ego, Jan Van de Stool, that
she is best known.
Self-proclaimed International Musical Therapist, interpretive
dancer, singing psychologist and musical masseuse, van de Stool is a brilliant creation who rivals Barry Humphries’
Edna Everage in her ability to convince her audience that she really is who she
purports to be.
Malapropisms,
mispronunciations, unself-conscious innuendo role off her tongue in
side-splitting succession, as she happily skewers the cult of celebrity, self-help
gurus, theatre critics, psychics and
anything else that enters her mind.
Van de Stool
proclaims at the beginning of hers is “a
show that takes it up the arts”, and while she refreshingly eschews coarse
language, she flies close to the flame as she hilariously instructs two hapless
gents from the audience in the finer points of microphone technique.
The laughs
commence early as van de Stool loosens up her audience with bump exercises,
before inveigling some on to the stage to discover previously unsuspected
cabaret talents. She interviews “celebrity” guests, battles a persistent ghost
medium which keeps trying to take over her body, and copes heroically with her
incompetent (unseen) accompanist, Helen.
Often
bordering on the chaotic, it was hard to decide whether her show was
under-rehearsed, or if van de Stool was being brilliantly subversive by de-constructing
the genre to create that appearance. Either way, she is hugely entertaining,
and audiences have the opportunity of a second performance tonight to decide
for themselves, before Queenie van de Zandt reverts to song-bird mode to
present two performances of her acclaimed cabaret, “Blue –The songs of Joni
Mitchell”, for which Helen will be replaced by the legendary composer and
pianist, Max Lambert.
This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 1st March 2018
