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Presented by: Joanne O’Callaghan for the Melbourne Fringe Festival
Venue: The Butterfly Club
Reviewer: Susanna Nelson
Date Reviewed: Monday 6th October 2008
South Melbourne’s little gem, The Butterfly Club is the perfect
setting for this little piece of Vaudeville, replete with its dusty
books, sailing ships in corked bottles and exotica from the colonies
of old: voodoo wood carvings, Chinese wall hangings and
scary-looking anatomically incorrect dolls with spears. The little
bar at the back beckons for a quick pre-show drink and then we are
ushered through to the tiny velvet draped theatre.
This one-woman show – part cabaret, part gentle stand-up – calls for
the audience to be transported to the early twentieth century, the
era of Edith Piaf and Louise Brooks, of smoky bars and silent films;
a time when French maids actually dressed in fetching black
mini-dresses with white broderie anglaise trim and bobbed black hair
was mandatory. In many ways this is a character so familiar as to be
cliché – the lovelorn woman-child with a knack of falling for the
wrong man, the clumsy, yearning dreamer, the tart with a heart. But
Joanne O’Callaghan, as our feisty heroine Elaine, wills you to come
along for the hour-long ride.
O’Callaghan is immediately engaging, entering down the cramped isle
of the theatre belting out a show tune and simultaneously entering
into patter with the audience. It’s hard to tell if the people she
interacts with are plants or whether they are members of the general
public. But she never misses a beat, managing to turn a couple of
apparently unscripted moments to her advantage and eliciting wry
chuckles and genuine laughs here and there as she weaves her tales
of love, loss and waitressing through a semi-familiar soundtrack
which features such standards as ‘Que Sera’ and, of course, ‘La
Vie En Rose’.
Cameron Thomas tinkles the ivories on the upright piano as
O’Callaghan fills the room with her powerful voice and physical
presence. There’s no dancing as such, but lots of movement and
rushing around as Elaine acts out her vignettes – carrying the show
along on a wave of Gallic charm.
Although the show is advertised as ‘Vulgar brass with just a little
sass’, it has a gentle, variety show feel – like an episode of the
Muppets or the Two Ronnies – with splashes of comedy and well-timed
pathos. There’s little plot to speak of but like the aforementioned
television classics, there doesn’t need to be. It’s sweet and safe.
There is something fearless about O’Callaghan – perhaps it is the
protective costuming that allows her to seem simultaneously
vulnerable and gutsy, natural and staged all at once. She lives the
character completely, never missing a beat or dropping her accent or
demeanour when interacting with the audience, so that it seems that
this little songbird from another era, with her twinkling eyes,
quick-fire delivery and perfect pitch, really is straight off the
streets of gay Pa-ree.
The
finalé sees our heroine discard the props that have bound her to us
for the last hour – the false eyelashes, black wig and
de trop (though
admirably consistent) French accent – and belt forth one final
number as her natural red curls cascade around her face. For all the
accoutrements she has used to weave her story, this is the most
powerful number of the show.
Susanna is a Trades Journalist by day and a culture vulture and
reviewer of just about anything by night. Since her days as a cinema
student she has had two passions - writing and singing. Writing pays
the bills, but if she were ever offered the opportunity to tread the
boards in a Broadway musical, she’d turf out her Mac in an instant.
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