Happy Endings | Perth Cutural Centre | Until 19th Feb | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Presenter by local troupe Tone and Cheek, the team behind the highly successful Club D’Amour, this new show is an impressive presentation that showcases the performers many talents.
Following the footsteps of Sondheim’s Into the Woods this show mashes together many of your favourite childhood fairytales while revealing that what may have previously been told is not maybe completely true.
In this recasting of the well-worn tales the Wolf, played by drag performer Fay Rocious, is best friends with Little Red Riding Hood. Amber Scates who dons the red hood quickly impressed the audience with her live vocals, it’s quite a feat to sing while taking part in gymnastic demonstrations.
The opening number saw the stage bathed in red light as the entire cast welcomed the audience into their forest with an energetic dance number that was filled with feathers, flips and frolicking.
Over the course of an hour, we went on a journey through the reimagined classics meeting the current reigning Mx Burlesque Matt Pope as Jack tackling a beanstalk. A long green silk hanging from the rafters saw him climb, spin and tumble in an impressive display of strength, agility and style.
Haydn Shadforth and Fay MacFarlane spun around the room as Hansel and Gretel, making the front row sit back in their seats as the couple whizzed by. Dancer Linton Elethios showed us that Prince Charming was actually just a highly sexed guy with a shoe fetish, while Melina Mall captivated as Rapunzel, who it turns out just wears a wig.
There were fun moments with the three bears, swashbuckling pirates and Snow White turned out to be a bit of a party girl. It wasn’t always clear which fairytale we were focusing on, but it didn’t really matter – it was a spectacle of talent.
The choreography in this show was superb, and while there was back flipping and all the other tricks and turns, it was great to see performers who are just great dancers.
While there was huge applause from the audience, I felt this show would have been even more electrifying if the cast had hyped the audience a little more, but instead a dark and spooky approach was given to the narration. This made it feel like we were watching the story, but not so much a part of it.
A decade after Fringe World launched it’s amazing to see local performers delivering shows that used to be imported here from other cities, and this amazing show is off to the Adelaide Fringe later in the month.
See Happy Endings until 19th of January. For tickets and more information, head to fringeworld.com.au
Graeme Watson is an editor at OUTinPerth. He has a background in journalism, creative writing, dance, theatre, radio and film working as a performer, producer and writer. Graeme writes for a variety of publications and has been working as a reviewer since 1997.
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