Short Sweet+Cabaret
Short Sweet+Cabaret
The Butterfly Club
10 July 2008
The world’s biggest short theatre festival, Short+Sweet roars into Melbourne this week with Short Sweet+Cabaret, its first foray into the world of cabaret performance.
Held at the home of cabaret in Melbourne, The iconic Butterfly Club, the short cabaret festival showcases emerging and established cabaret artists from around Melbourne and Australia generally. With 17 new works in total, each of only ten minutes, the shows are varied, exciting, fresh and innovative.
Packing 12 performances into two hours has been a challenge for the Butterfly Club, but the effort seems to have been worth it, with some very polished and promising performances on the opening night. A wide range of performances took to the stage, from classical cabaret takes on How To Dump Your Boyfriend to a quirky take on geek love in Face Value
Elenor Jane Adams’ absurdist take on superstardom, Little Miss Janey-May Dimples Presents: F**k You Shirley Temple, was the first great surprise of the night for me, with a strong storyline and an impressive commitment to her character. Elenor struck a nice balance between insanity and humanity, endearing herself to the audience in her brief time.
Melding politics with performance is never an easy task, but it’s one that Karin Muizneiks and Erin Newington attack admirably, with Hell’s Cabaret taking on crime, punishment and gay marriage in one 10 minute whirlwind. Although their performances were occasionally unfocussed, the concept is brilliant, and the girls have a great chemistry and two highly expressive voices.
Emerging cabaret artists can come from anywhere, with Tom Dickins’ Cab-O-Rage sat squarely in the night-life of Ballarat. A well-fleshed out story with clever staging, the piece suffered slightly from nerves, but was nonetheless engaging, and promising for the future of cabaret outside of metropolitain Melbourne.
Hayley Ramsay’s hilarious portrayal of a drunken bridesmaid in Not So Secret Bridesmaid’s Business was a particular highlight, with a solid script, good use of music to advance the story and a great sense of comic timing. I hope to see this piece again, if only for the hilarious bridesmaid’s dress!
With a wide range of styles, stories and skill levels, Short Sweet+Cabaret is a great showcase of new and emerging artists in the Melbourne cabaret scene. Fun, exciting and at times touching, each show of the festival is a pot-pourri of creativity.