Reviews – Theatre Notes

The Sound of Music Drag Show

Reviews - The Sound of Music Drag Show

Theatre Notes: The Sound of Music Drag Show 

…I trickled into the Bosco, a brightly painted wooden tent which is hospitably hosting a number of Comedy Festival acts, to see The Sound of Music Drag Show. Last year it became the longest running drag show ever in Melbourne, and also won the Rainbow Award for Best Drag Show. It’s easy to see why.

This is rough theatre at its rudest and most uproarious. Its cast of six re-enacts, to a rather free version of the Julie Andrews sound track (it segues into funk or Europop at a moment’s notice), a scatalogical version of The Sound of Music. Maria (Jessica James) is not quite the sylph-like innocent of the movie, Captain von Trapp (Kris del Vayse) has a serious problem with flatulence, the Baroness (Roxie Bullwinkle) is a predatory vamp, and the children (who have been whittled down to four) are, if it’s possible, even more unspeakable than they are in the film. And the nuns rock.

The ideal of the happy family saved by song takes a few slaps in the course of the show, and of course there’s the hypnotic performance of femininity that is drag itself. Fascinatingly, you get a broad spectrum of the feminine here: the six performers are a wide variety of shapes, sizes and ages. It’s fair to say that gender is a free-floating entity: when the queens dress as men, they still sport very impressive breasts.

It is as much a tribute to The Sound of Music as it is a high-spirited parody. Part of its charm is the chance to hear again all those classic Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, and to remember how good they are. They’re certainly robust enough to survive the disrespectful treatment. The cossies are fabulously over the top, the choreography is winning, and the sheer energy irresistible. And the performers seem to be having as much fun as the audience.

Melbourne Comedy Festival April 2007.

Posted by Alison Croggon

Source:

http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2007/04/review-pitch-sound-of-music-drag-show.html