This show arrives in Sydney trailing a string of awards and rave reviews from around the world. Moira Finuncane and Jackie Smith are the creative force behind the long-running Burlesque Hour project, of which the Glory Box Edition is the latest iteration. Over the last decade the burlesque form has grown into a popular, mainstream entertainment in Australia with some exceptional examples and some mediocre. At the exceptional end of the scale are La Soiree and its Olivier Award winning predecessor, La Clique. Both shows feature truly breathtaking acts of the likes of aerialist David (Bath Boy) O’Mer, The English Gents and Mario Queen of the Circus, to name a few. Some veterans of those shows – Ursula Martinez, Meow Meow and Miss Behavin’ – appear in The Burlesque Hour line-up.
It is difficult not to compare these great, benchmark shows with The Burlesque Hour, but the comparison is one of apples with pears because The Burlesque Hour self-consciously confronts the burlesque form with the dual aims of celebration and subversion. At the centre of the project is an intention to redefine the ‘tits’n’feathers’ stereotypes of the form by toying with notions of gender, adult entertainment and female archetypes.
As a political project The Burlesque Hour makes no pretence of subtlety. It is brash, often literal in promoting its theses. As entertainment, the show has all the risqué colour and movement expected of bona fide burlesque but falls short of delivering the high standard of its own publicity.
The Seymour Centre is an unkind venue for the show. The space limits intimacy to the tables clustered around the catwalk, thrust stage. The rake of the auditorium seating, where I was located, creates too much distance from the action. Opening night fumbles and touring budgets aside, the lighting was pedestrian and lacked the punch the show calls for. The audio volume was too high and in a show that relies so heavily on backing tracks it felt as if it were an attempt at compensation for what was happening (or not) on stage.
The show is a series of short acts with no narrative thread or MC linking them and, significantly, no anchor to the audience. This is a notable shortcoming.
The acts are of varying quality but all performed with energy and enthusiasm. Dance and spoken word feature prominently. Only one male performer appears in the line-up. Unfortunately, the resolution of the opening vignette is painfully predictable about half-way through and this basic flaw in structure is repeated several times throughout the show. An act featuring a woman in a long white dress carrying a bowl of red liquid has a weary sense of inevitability about it. Overall, tits are so much more often out than in that the ‘tease’ evaporates early in the show. Perhaps that is an intentional part of the subversion.
Without doubt, the high point of the evening is the remarkable Pamela Rabe in black leather, Victorian attire, reciting ‘Who will plough my vulva?’ Her measured, precise delivery was incredibly sexy and provocative and actually did succeed in making a salient point. It was also the only act in the show that successfully managed humour or irony.
Subversion is a difficult gig: without skill and wit it falls utterly flat. For some of the opening night audience the show clearly hit the mark, if the all-in Bollywood version of Glee at the end was any indication. In the face of so much hype and praise, so many awards and so much front in The Burlesque Hour, I am left to confess that I may be one of the few who got it but didn’t enjoy it.
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
The Burlesque Hour: Glory Box Edition
By Finucane & Smith and guests
Seymour Centre, Sydney
15 – 24 November
