Gird your loins for a real show stopper
THE lights dim and a wave of silence and anticipation washes over the audience. The stage, a small circular platform with a short runway connecting it to the band’s stage, is in an arena-like setting with an enormous circus tent canopy above. The audience is huddled closely around the stage, unaware of just how intimate the upcoming performance will be.
This is the Melba Spiegeltent and it’s the opening night of Show Stopper at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, a cabaret show with elements of a rock concert created by Melbourne-based drag performer Agent Cleave.
The show is described as “a cabaret strictly for mature audiences” that is “proudly feminist in its ethos, unapologetically queer in its execution”.
The show’s three-piece band, made up of Pete Barry, Kieran John Brooks (both on guitar) and drummer Jonny Badlove, are all dressed in an array of leather chaps, straps and boots. Their faces are adorned with black make-up for a gothic-rock feel, with their bare, hairy chests and frazzled hairdos complete the look of a 1970s rock band.
As the band starts to play a grungy rock melody, out comes the star, the “drag assassin”, the show stopper: Agent Cleave — dressed in heels that could strike oil and a bearded face made flawless with luscious red lipstick and shiny, flowing hair.
Cleave takes the audience on a wild, seductive ride with powerful female rock anthems, such as Garbage’s Queer, the Divinyls’ Boys In Town, and Peaches’ Show Stopper, all interlaced with monologues of his character creations.
An exploration of female gender through time, Cleave breathes life into five different personas “released from the dated archetypes of dangerous feminine sexuality”.
The show opens with Cleave wearing a frayed overcoat and pirate hat to present a version of a gay pirate. He changes costumes many times throughout the show, both on stage and off, giving voice to a stripper, a 1940s vamp lounge singer, a mermaid (complete with fishy tail), and a virgin.
Show Stopper’s intentions are clear: to provoke and arouse the audience. It’s a raunchy cabaret performance and that will make you rethink how you view feminine sexuality, especially when it is so boldly and beautifully portrayed by a bearded and hairy chested veteran of the Melbourne drag scene.
Sure to move you in all the right places, Show Stopper is a clear highlight of this year’s Fringe and a must-see for all lovers of cabaret and drag.
Where: The Melba Spiegeltent, 35 Johnston St, Collingwood
When: September 18-21, 25-28 at 10pm
Tickets: $25 adult; $22 concession
