Queer Lady Magician

After an introduction by an MC (Sonia Marcon), Queer Lady Magician relies on a familiar trope: the talented performer, Queer Lady Magician (Creatrix Tiara) is beset by her jealous assistant, Chadbury (Bradley Storer), who’s determined not just to sabotage Queer Lady Magician, but to eliminate her and take over the show.  The assistant to the assistant, Caliope (Chelsea Byrne) is coerced into this nefarious plan and looks entirely dubious about it.

But, meanwhile, this show is quite prepared to go off on a couple of tangents.  There’s a long comedy sketch about gender identity – involving many costume changes - at an airport immigration control barrier.  There are sequences where Queer Lady Magician tells long, rambling stories about her multi-national heritage and family, and her experiences in the USA involving other queer magicians.  These appear to be ‘true’ stories – so, in other words, Creatrix Tiara drops her stage persona to tell them.  Zeb Dreen is credited as dramaturg, but you have to wonder how much influence they had – if any.

Having dispatched misogynist Chadbury, who is naturally inept despite his claims of being the best magician in the world, the MC reintroduces the Queer Lady Magician and she gets down – finally, when the show is nearly over – to some magic tricks: pea and thimble, a rope trick and a card trick.  These are not, I must say, performed with any degree of slick polish and look as if they may have been learned in the last few days from the Magic Consultant, Anthony de Masi.

Creatrix Tiara herself seems nervous or ill at ease, gabbling her lines, with her performance drifting in and out of character, alternating between Queer Lady Magician and direct confessional appeal to the audience.  Mr Storer may be better than he appears here, but as he is burdened with such heavy-handed material, who can tell?  The MC, Ms Marcon, has her two moments, but otherwise spends almost the whole show sitting on a chair stage right.  Is she necessary at all?  Only Ms Byrne as Caliope, the assistant’s assistant, seems to know how to move, play comedy and, indeed, act.  The eye goes to her in gratitude.  Director Sharmini Kumar just hasn’t been able – or more likely just couldn’t be – to pull these disparate performances and bits of material together

It’s hard to say what the point or tone of this show is – beyond assertion of a queer persona being a magician.  But that doesn’t give you a free pass.  There are many warmly received LGBTQIA+ references and throwaway gags, but otherwise the show is clunky and meandering.  On preview night, some of the audience did appear to have a great time with a lot of loud laughter, but there was more the feel of a family and friends’ parlour game in a safe and indulgent setting where being unpolished, scarcely rehearsed and amateur doesn’t matter.  Creatrix Tiara does emphasise in the show that this is her very first (the subtext of that is obvious), so we’ll see what she does next.

Michael Brindley