Whether they grew up immersed in the lifestyle, or discovered it as a new hobby during the pandemic, cabaret has wrapped its glittering tendrils around so many debut performers this year.
For Tomáš Kantor, whose Sugar delves into the concept of transactional sexual relationships, their interest was sparked through hanging out with their theatre director dad at work.
“I was this mischievous, flamboyant, besotted kid,” they say. “Frequently dressed up as a fairy, running amok on sets, chasing spotlights, imitating the sultry croons and vampy quips of these burgeoning stars.”
Such a sparkling childhood feels utterly enviable, not least if you can transform your early-years cabaret education into a career. There’s a uniqueness and community that cabaret affords, making it an obvious choice for performers who have something to say – its ability to shroud any topic in fabulousness is an ideal way of getting a serious point across.
“By making the audience your confidant, you invite them to care deeply about you and what you’re saying,” Kantor continues. “So when covering ground that might feel more taboo, the previously unspeakable or unimaginable becomes personal. You can learn through the messiness and the survival and the camp and the tension and the danger and the sex. It’s very human.”
Kat McGarr’s debut Stardust is a glitter-soaked cabaret meltdown exploring loss, legacy and grief. She’s been performing immersive theatre since the early 2000s, but it wasn’t until the concept for her show fell from the sky that she began seriously working on it.
“Being a ‘fallen star’ character, she [Star Dust] just fit into the sparkle and grit of cabaret,” she says. But, more than that: “Cabaret is such a powerful tool for performance because it can really land the hard stuff by surprise. Grief is chaos, it is utterly heart-breaking and untethering mess-making, absurd, profound and transforming…. cabaret can be all those things too.”
In Mr P from HR the titular character welcomes the audience to their new job, but before long it becomes clear that there are dark secrets about the workplace bursting to be revealed.
“Cabaret is a fun and silly way to platform social issues and commentary,” Mr P’s alter ego Izzy Kate Ward says. “You can satirise the most horrific things and leave an audience laughing in joy… and fear.”
This trio of debuts all approach difficult issues – grief, sexuality and misogyny – in different ways, but the throughline between them all is an exploration of the myriad ways in which cabaret is such an engrossing storytelling medium. Looking to make work that creates change in an audience in some way, McGarr dresses up a deeply personal topic in a character that can express both her strength and vulnerability.
“I often begin from a very visual place, collecting pictures and images, so the story is definitely in the visual composition of the character or the ‘scene’,” she says. “It’s in the physical comedy, the shapes, the chaos.”
It’s all about the character, too, for Ward, manifesting the true essence of a story by the characters she brings to life on stage.
“I often feel characters speak for themselves. The first line Mr P says should tell you everything you need to know about him!”
Keeping the audience engaged and surprised is the fun of cabaret for Kantor, focusing on being super clear about the story they’re telling.
“And then, explode that baby open with everything I’ve got – song, dance, musicianship, character, comedy, pathos, a bit of audience interaction. Eyes are a storyteller’s secret weapon, they’re portals, and mine will be big and twinkly for you!”
Sugar, Assembly Checkpoint, 30 Jul-24 Aug (not 12, 18), 4.20pm
STARDUST Starring Star Dust (In Person), Underbelly, Bristo Square, 30 Jul-24 Aug (not 6, 12, 18), 5.25pm
Mr P From HR, theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall, 18-23 Aug, 10pm