Shamelessly Glitzy Work
Post
North Melbourne Town Hall, Arts House
14th and 15th August, 8pm
I have seen two Post shows before, both in Melbourne, both at the Next Wave Festival (2006 and 2008). I have also seen a totally amazing short piece by Zoe Coombs Marr (one third of Post) at Next Wave’s Nightclub project that I really loved. In addition to this I count them all as friends, they are the kind of performance artists I really appreciate – confident and sure of their places in the arts scene in Australia, yet I find not an ounce of hubris within them. If anything they are continually undercutting themselves.
I was super excited to see this piece Shamelessly Glitzy Work, as it was the first full length theatre piece I have seen of theirs. I read an interview with Zoe where she talked about the affect of stage design, logos and decoration in election campaigns and how they are the same no matter what format you are taking. I read this piece after I saw SGW and I retrospectively began to understand what they were aiming for with the work. In truth, I am not sure if they truly conveyed these ideas for me.
BUT, the show was amazing anyway and I loved it.
Such a clear structure, such committed performance and simple clean imagery. And funny, so damn funny.
The piece developed along a set of text sequences which seemed to be not connected to the actions they were carrying out, the disjunction of these creating a weird atmosphere which I only followed due to the intensity and charm of the performances. It would take some very special performers to carry an audience through this and I felt like they really brought us with them each time they went somewhere strange. In this way the engagement was clear.
Another thing I loved was that they were just Zoe, Mish and Nat – and although they cloaked themselves in the costumes and layers of others, they were still Post, speaking from their own truth.
The centre piece of this work was a long unison jumping sequence (I can’t help but reference s.i.c (something in common) here from Perth as they have a 20 minute durational work where they jump). This sequence in SGW began as jumping to a techno track moving through an aerobics feel then slowly over time to an ugly spiky tirade which seemed to be directed at them from an external male voice. In a cataclysmic display of humanism they completely dismantled our sometimes fraught relationship between the sexes in this country. This sequence owes a lot to timing, the build in it is perfect and the climax with a wild eyed, psychopathic Zoe screaming “c’mon girls” with her breasts exposed through a vodka soaked t-shirt was nothing short of amazing.
As the piece unraveled from here, it literally went backwards. As they went back through the whole piece line by line but in the opposite direction. And here the work became problematic for me. There wasn’t enough change in the style of the performance for it to read as different or that it was trying to prove that words mean nothing in this context because it is the visual signs and symbols that are around them that are speaking louder.
But this is a minor criticism for what is a very intelligent piece of work.
Post is a key element in the performance landscape, and I am glad they are here.
