Conflict has riven a Blak family grieving the death of radio host Deadly Dave (Greg Fryer). As his widow (Lisa Maza) erupts into performative wailing, his doctor daughter (Maurial Spearim), sick of being the responsible one, unleashes resentments on her feckless rugby-star brother (Zach Blampied), not to mention his woke, white hippie influencer girlfriend (Jordan Barr).

The hubbub is stopping Dave from passing in peace, so he haunts them all in an uproarious, silly, and slightly sexy farce that pokes fun at every piety and folly and insecurity.

Most Australian comedy has an irreverent streak, but Blak comedy is next level. Dave-from-beyond-the-grave reconciles all parties to respecting the dead through torturing his loved ones with outlandish low humour until they learn to respect one another. Expect unhinged variety with zany musical outbursts, zombie chases, carrot-smoking, and coffin sex. Hilarious and heart-warming stuff.

The final play synthesises the first two in aesthetic. Phoebe Grainer’s Emu in the Sun contains traces of Indigenous legend and astronomy – in many Aboriginal cultures the moon is a lazy man and the sun fiercely feminine – and here Etta (Grainer), a young woman bedridden with depression and anxiety, is drawn out of herself into a surreal phantasmagoria.

It’s a dream(ing-ish) play in which Teresa Moore beckons Etta into a dark constellation of cabaret and camp mayhem.

The fantasy quest adventure is enlivened by mischief and glamour and the adorable comic antics of the Moon (Trevor Jamieson) and a dragon (Luke Currie-Richardson), with the two actors doubling as cowboy and minotaur when things get real, and Etta confronts some of what lies under the veil of her dreams and nightmares.

Wildly inventive and unconventional, whimsical and free, this is a gloom-dispelling odyssey that should instil a kind of willed innocence in any heart and mind that’s open enough. It almost feels like an Aboriginal improvement on The Wizard of Oz. Etta conquers the demons of mental illness with courage and comic aplomb and the assistance of oddly loveable companions, the ingredients of her fantasia ancient and modern.

All three of these works are worth seeing, and there’s a contemporary exhibition featuring Blak artists and posters from Ilbijerri’s history upstairs, with other workshops and talks throughout the season.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

THEATRE
Edging ★ ★
Aphids, Arts House, until December 1

Australia’s border security policies, bias against those perceived as ‘other’, and the treatment of asylum seekers lie at the core of experimental art organisation Aphids’ new show, EDGING.

Helmed by performers Sammaneh Pourshafighi and Eden Falk (and created by them, along with Aphids co-director Lara Thoms, with additional script consultancy with Negar Rezvani), the show attempts to interrogate what it calls “the popular-culture-industrial complex” and how this intersects with queerness, pink-washing and the Australian border regime.

There’s a certain irrealism to EDGING – in vogue in the current “post-truth” world – that flirts with truth and fiction. We are provided snippets into the real lives of Pourshafighi and Falk – the former a queer, nonbinary Iranian artist who fled their home country with their mother when they were a toddler, the latter a white cisgender man and acting school drop-out who had previously done voiceovers for three seasons of Border Security.

Throughout the hour-long show, the power dynamic between the performers is continually flipped, but minute ripples of tension are quickly deflated – there’s a tonal instability here that never descends into the bathos its creators hope to foreground.

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A lingering uncertainty abounds: juxtaposed with the Albanese government’s recent plan to combine migration policies that would help it deport thousands of non-citizens – which EDGING doesn’t mention – the show’s general tone of lightheartedness ironically offsets the gravity of the current situation in a way that doesn’t allow for further introspection around the uses of propaganda.

While what might initially seem nonsensical – questions directed at the audience about horoscopes, a dog cameo – is revealed as part of the workings of the farcical border regime in Australia, there remains a dramaturgical distance as the performers never fully breach the limits the show sets for itself.

EDGING cements Aphids’ brand as a performance company that delves into serious issues with an injection of absurdity – we’ve seen them do grief, class, death, capitalism. There is almost always a signature spare, placeless atmosphere; equally placeless “for vibes”-type music; unexpected cameos; and a dash of reality destabilisation. Performers read prepared text, riff, make weird noises with their mouths. Throw in a bit of Australiana to remind the audience where we are.

While the dynamic between Pourshafighi and Falk reflects a distinct inequality, the individualistic mindset embedded within the show’s plot jars next to the literally life-or-death issues that EDGING aims to explore. The two performers, as well, embody a particular colourlessness even though they are meant to be playing themselves.

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It might be funny to hear the words “daddy issues” on stage, or unexpected mentions of cult Berlin nightclub Berghain in the context of this show. Tried-and-tested, and perhaps apt elsewhere, but what’s an experimental art organisation saying when risks are not being taken?
Reviewed by Cher Tan

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