Wayne Scott Kermond commands the stage at Speigel’esque. Image via Speigel Zest.
Speigel’esque is a high energy mix of cabaret and circus – with a little touch of burlesque – performed up close and personal in the smallest Speigel tent in the world, only seating 120 people. Speigel Zest is an art nouveau tent of mirrors, nearly one hundred years old and boasts Marlene Dietrich as one of the many artists who have performed in it. The sense of history is strong when you step into the tent and its space and its ambiance literally shape and mould the show. Speigel’esque is designed as a crowd pleaser aimed at attracting audiences away from interacting with their screens and to engage instead with the humans performing in front of them live.
It offers the audience the chance to experience 10 top cabaret artists in the flesh up close and personal singing, dancing, piano playing and performing circus aerials all literally within arm’s reach. The performers build on this sense of physical connection with the audience by using the whole space often entering from behind the audience, moving amongst them, and sometimes reaching out and touching them on the shoulder or brushing past them. At one point, two of the dancers step up onto the tables in the booths and literally tap-dance on two tables on either side of the stage. Wayne Scott Kermond plays ringmaster to the show and interacts with the audience teasing and bantering with plentiful sexual innuendo.
These 10 performers are all of the highest calibre, and they don’t hold back. They give the show their all, with high voltage dance, exciting circus and numerous song and dance numbers. The circus artists performed duo silks, Chinese pole as a duo act, and a lyra act, effectively adapting the acts to the low height of the tiny tent and still creating acts that were sensuous and sexy, driving the enthusiastic group of women behind me into a whooping frenzy.
The high point of the show is the final number at the end when Wayne Scott Kermond commands the stage in a solo song that shows his remarkable singing voice and mesmerizing stage presence to its full potential. The show left the crowd whooping and cheering with one woman even starting a high energy jig in the aisle to the amazement of her companion.
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars
Speigel’esque
Conceptor: Wayne Scott Kermond
Director: Katie Kermond
Choreography: Katie Kermond and Mashum Liberta
Lighting Design: Matt Osborne
Performers: Wayne Scott Kermond, Kate Wilson, Peta Anderson, Sammy Jo, Ebony Wright, Alexander ‘Zan’ Kermond, Dylan Mahoney, Angelique Brown, Chris Talbot, Andrew Freeborn.
Speigel Zelt, Italian Forum, 23 Norton Street, Leichardt, Sydney
23 November 2016 – 15 January 2017
