A Piece for an Odd Place and The Want

Who are The Stain?  They are, primarily, a rock ‘n’ roll kinda punk band who also incorporate dance, puppetry, burlesque, film and theatre into their act.  And the show does indeed include all these things – and for a show that presents itself as rough around the edges, it exhibits great theatricality, musicianship and focused energy.  In its own queer way, it is very accomplished indeed.  Not quite knowing what to expect, I found myself held, provoked, excited and thoroughly entertained.  My Companion whispered in my ear, ‘I haven’t had this much fun in the theatre for months!’

The show falls into two not unrelated parts, both directed with great visual flair by Anni Davey – a woman of many abilities, not least as a performer with Circus Oz.  The lighting, by Simon Coleman (the only male in the outfit), is unobtrusively skillful in changing ambience and, in particular, hiding puppeteers.

The first part of the show, A Piece for an Odd Place, is a kind of performance piece that is arresting even before you understand quite what it all means.  The band (Jo Franklin, lead guitar, Sarah Blaby on bass, the amazing Helen Tuton, one of the best rock drummers I’ve ever seen) provides an eerie and insistent music backing.  Two ‘nurses’ (Cleo Cutcher, Tomoko Yamasaki) are dressed in the kind of ‘sex fantasy nurse’ outfit you’d buy in an ‘adult’ store.  They dance – or writhe, a nod to burlesque - and remove from their knickers and suspender belts piece after piece of make-up stuff: foundation, blusher, mascara, eyebrow pencil, lipstick, etc.  They lay out these things on a table beside a basin and an ewer.  The very charismatic Woman (I’m calling her that) – Francesca Sculli – deadpan but somehow accusing - enters in a pants suit.  She washes her face and then, sans mirror, applies – or smears – the makeup.  The feel is grotesque, close to masochistic.  The powder puff, controlled by a black-clad, near invisible puppeteer, floats about her head.  She removes the pants suit, assisted now by two puppeteers.  She removes her camisole and knickers and, naked, retreats into darkness… only to reappear, up stage, bathed in warm light, ascending some stairs until, again, she disappears.  But now the puppeteers bring her suit to life: coat joins with pants: the two together create an ethereal body, which dances…  I leave it to the reader to infer what all this means – which isn’t too hard – but it is both disturbing and strangely beautiful.  The puppetry is by KT Prescott.

Almost immediately, we segue into The Want, the second part of the show, a tribute to the ‘women who were pioneers in rock ‘n’ roll and punk music’.  Bikini Kill, Fifth Column, Patti Smith, Blondie, Magic Dirt, Cindy Lauper and The Divynls.  Stills and clips of these bands and women are projected on a screen made of underwear that drops from the flies.  Patti Smith is grumpily brilliant in an interview with a male interviewer.  Ms Sculli returns, now in black leather and dangerously high platform shoes, accompanied by the dancers in similar outfits, to make a statement: don’t ask her what she is!  Sometimes a Piano Player…sometimes not…  F**k off!.

The Want?  Of what?  Of many things: freedom, identity, creative expression, creative assertion, unfettered sexuality, but principally not to be defined, especially by men – and not having to seek permission to play rock ‘n’ roll as good as or better than the boys.

But ‘tribute’ doesn’t mean mimicry or reproduction àlaBernadette Robinson or Paul Capsis: these women make the songs their own, with their own harmonies, even while the songs remain recognisable.  When Francesca Sculli does a Patti Smith number, she gives the audience Patti Smith without being Patti Smith.

A ‘special guest’ is Rebekah Zechner, of Sydney band BRACODE; she comes on, in a lurid riot of colour and eyelashes as big as her hands, to sing Cindy Lauper’s She Bop – a song about masturbation, apparently.  I don’t know how I missed that.  Most women in the audience certainly hadn’t.  Whatever, Ms Zechner is a class act, adding, weaving and modulating styles into the number.  I have to say that the energy does fall away a little with the arrival of Penny Inkinger.  She’s a world renowned, award winning guitarist and she coaxes amazing sounds from her guitar, but I suspect we all wanted to get back to the loud, in-your-face attack of the rest – which we did as Ms Sculli gave us a version of Chrissie Amphlett and Boys In Town – a heartbreaker.

The final presentation, by The 50ft Queenie Choir, trooping onto stage from the back and segueing into a sort of tribute to Pussy Riot, definitely has it’s heart in the right place, but I’d rather the show went out on a roar rather than a warm inner glow.  

If this is the kind of thing you like, you’ll love this.  I did.

Michael Brindley