Review: Guest Reviewer Charley Allanah Shares Her Thoughts on MASTERCLASS

Brokentalkers and Adrienne Truscott, Sydney Festival, Jan 12 (thru 16)

To be blunt, if you’re into theatre of social commentary and/or socially minded comedy, Brokentalkers and Adrienne Truscott’s ‘Masterclass’ is, simply, brilliant.  

Technically speaking, Masterclass is masterfully executed. Evocatively and subtly lit and scored, providing perfect notes of tension and release. Staging and choreography utilise Truscott’s history in burlesque and Cannon’s talent for physical comedy to great effect. The setting is simple and effective as are costumes with enjoyable nods to vaudeville. 

Those who are familiar with Truscott’s work (as one half to the Wau Wau Sisters or her rapier-sharp stand up) will find the content of ‘Masterclass’ perfectly in line with her oeuvre. Brokentalkers contribution is most evident in the work’s radical form: their signature ‘slippery dramaturgy’ (Sydney Festival’s words) manifesting in near total abandonment of any sense of ‘well made-ness’, radical yet strangely cohesive mid-flow shifts of style, and serial deconstructions of multiple layers of meta-theatre. In layman’s terms: the show begins as one thing, with one set of assumptions and circumstances. It doesn’t stay that way for long. 

The premise (to begin) is simple: an onstage masterclass in playwrighting and performance, hosted by a moderately well-informed dweeb (Feidlim Cannon) and celebrating a controversial male theatrical ‘Genius’ (Truscott, in exquisitely schlocky man-drag). The performances are wonderfully broad and funny, full of slapstick and stereotype: it’s Buster Keaton does ‘Inside The Actors’ Studio’. The ‘Genius’ and his work are (of course) deeply ‘problematic’ - misogyny etc. abound. The conversation quickly turns to the post #metoo-feminist-topical. But it’s fun, full of gentle ribbings of the patriarchs and their silly arrogances and ignorances. Affectionate in tone … for a bit.  

Then it darkens. The critiques are more cutting, the behaviours more disturbing, and the given circumstances, the rules of play, begin to unravel. Without giving too many spoilers, by the halfway point the premise is utterly transformed and the event has come much closer to home for everyone in the theatre. Moments are shatteringly intense. This is tough stuff - but handled exquisitely. The show may disturb, but narrowly avoids the potentially-traumatising with astute use of role reversal, and perfectly timed moments of  bubbling back to broader comedy. 

The ‘Genius’ protests that truth exists objectively. The entirely obvious if unbearable truth that the work reveals (spoiler alert): that it’s not only “bad guys” who do and allow all this mysoginist shitfuckery, it’s every imperfect ally. Which means all of us - Cannon and even Truscott included. 

One could quibble with the elision of a few subsequent truth conclusions left un- explored, revealing that the work is primarily one about binary (white) feminism, only barely scraping intersectionality, but the work declares this about itself unashamedly. This show declares and exemplifies that Truscott (and maybe Cannon) have read their Dworkin, Butler and Greer. It’s strongly implied that they have also read their DiAngelo etc. and their Halberstam etc. - that’s just not this show. And that’s ok. 

This show knows what it is. Will you ‘like’ it, or ‘agree with’ it? That doesn’t seem to be the artists concern, and nor should it be. It will make you acutely aware of how your viewpoint affects your answers to those questions. From my subjectively white-trans-woman-of-fag-experience viewpoint: the work is wildly successful. Fierce, frank and f-ing funny. See it, and find out how it sits with, slides across or crashes into your viewpoint. 

 

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