Design Federation

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is an off-beat, cabaret-style piece currently showing at the Opera House. An entertaining performance blending genres, periods and mediums to titillate the eager audience, the play is the brainchild of new, UK performance group 1927 Cabaret which was born of the creative collaborations between designer/film-maker Paul Bill Barritt and writer, Suzanne Andrade.

Brought to Australia for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival after runaway success at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and finishing it’s Sydney run this week.The show consists of vignettes or “10 Terrible Tales from neither a rock nor a hard place, but the space in between.” Drawing on the traditions of silent movies, surrealism, German expressionistic cinema and vaudeville. These gothic pieces are accompanied by the tinkling of the on-stage piano (performed by composer/pianist Lillian Henley), haunting poetry, Marceau-esque painted faces and the crackly, animated stylings of Barritt (which seem to tip the hat to Edward Gorey’s illustrations). Andrade and Esme Appleton scramble like elegant spiders over the stage (and even into the audience) in old-worldly costumes, executing their subtle dark art with impressive precision dancing, miming and reciting grim nursery rhymes and twisted morality tales. Despite the nightmarish themes explored (housewives dying of Chlamydia, murderous Victorian children, devils in forests and suicidal gingerbread men) the kids at my table seemed unfazed and the audience last night were generous with their laughs enjoying the novelty.

Visually enchanting, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea magically conjures another time and place that is sometimes steeped in our world but often in a ghoulish other. It is a macabre mash-up which for the most part works. You will be carried along by the music or the visual spectacular when the writing tends to nonsense and then be picked up again by the striking wit and the aplomb which pulls it all together, delightfully. It’s a neat 55 minutes of delicious nastiness and as it’s sold out everywhere it plays internationally it is certainly worth a look-see - but be on your guard - there’s no fourth wall between the devils on stage and the sea of audience.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea showing
The Studio - Sydney Opera House, June 17-27; and
Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, July 1-13.

Review by Miss Pigelle

Tags: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Miss Pigelle