‘Songs designed to tell a story’
Ahead of Auckland’s cabaret season, Tim Minchin and an array of artists talk to Mina Kerr-Lazenby about the art form and what lies in its future.
EVERYONE has an image that springs to mind upon hearing the word ‘‘cabaret’’, and it often materialises dripping in sequins. A definition, however, is harder to come by – even for those who are poster boys and girls for the art.
‘‘Cabaret is this sort of umbrella thing that starts at burlesque and ends at concerts, I suppose,’’ attempts Tim Minchin, the triple-threat comedian, writer and musician who has inadvertently found himself as torchbearer for the scene.
Next week, Minchin will headline Auckland Live’s dedicated Cabaret Season, a sizeable celebration that will see 20 shows and 135 performers champion off-kilter performance at The Civic.
‘‘When I say I’m a cabaret artist I mean I write theatrical songs, and my songs are designed to tell a story and take you on a journey. That could be one definition,’’ he continues.
One of the most alluring facets for cabaret performers is that they are able to tell their own tales as opposed to reenacting those of others.
Rutene Spooner, a stalwart on the Auckland cabaret scene, enjoys being able to ‘‘story-tell in the way that I want’’. His show Thoroughly Modern Maui tackles themes of masculine toxicity and racial profiling.
Both are topics he has wanted to discuss on the stage for quite some time and the cabaret world, where he can soften the narratives’ blow with funny anecdotes, glitter, shiny props and ‘‘a glass or two of vino’’, provides the best place.
Entertainment is still ‘‘the primary purpose’’ but he also wants to serve his audience with food for thought saying his definition would be that, beneath the feathers and the sequins, cabaret is a didactic art form, comprising fables of the stage that are designed to make an audience think.
As Janelle Bish, Auckland
Live programmer and director of the festival, puts it, cabaret should ‘‘make the people laugh and when their mouths are open, shove the truth down their throats’’.
This is made all the more engaging thanks to cabaret’s forgoing of the fourth wall: in these types of performances, the audience is there to see and be seen.
Bish describes the removal of this barrier as creating ‘‘beautiful intimacy of exchange between the artists and the audience’’, while Spooner credits it as the reason why audiences comes in the first place. It’s the ‘‘one-on-one banter’’ that draws the crowds in, he said.
Robin Kelly, who will be hosting The Secret Piano Bar alongside performing in cover show Let It Beatles, says this dialogue between performer and audience makes cabaret ‘‘real and authentic’’. ‘‘The audience gives energy to the performer and vice versa. They share everything together, it’s a communal experience.’’
And it’s certainly growing in popularity. A shift in the theatrical landscape has seen more unorthodox performance art take centre stage over the past couple of years – a 20-show cabaret showcase at one of Auckland’s most mainstream venues is proof of that alone.
It is a strange kind of
mainstream success. By definition, cabaret is supposed to be alternative.
Minchin, describing cabaret as ‘‘a big term for everything that doesn’t fit into a single category’’, says it is an art form that ‘‘tends to be eccentric, and quirky’’ – one that is inclined to define itself in opposition to standard theatre or ‘‘packable pop or jazz’’.
‘‘It’s an outsider scene or a celebration of otherness, without a doubt.’’
And so a question arises: would a more mainstream cabaret scene lose its alternative essence?
Some artists revel at the thought of it being more recognised, like drag king, comedian and cabaret producer Hugo Grrrl, who wants cabaret to be for everyone.
Offering the younger generation their first foray into cabaret is the raison d’eˆ tre of his show, The Glitter Garden.
‘‘Will cabaret become gentrified or homogenised? In many ways I hope it does,’’ he says. ‘‘I hope it’s a wonderful date night spot for your bog standard middle-aged couple, and I hope that way they then get exposed to stuff they don’t see on Netflix or at a regular theatre.’’
But Minchin says little chance of that anytime soon, and those who seek out cabaret as a welcoming, alternative space will always be able to do so.
‘‘Cabaret is a long way off from being too popular.’’
Cabaret performances will always push people, provoke them, and, as a consequence, they will sit alongside mainstream cultural additions like made-toplease blockbuster movies or theatre shows, he says.
Take this upcoming cabaret season, for example. If you pick five events out of a hat, you could potentially hate two of them, and one of them you’re likely to not understand.
But, as Minchin puts it, the odds you will find one unforgettable show that gives ‘‘some sort of transformative experience that just blows your frickin’ mind’’ are very good.
And it’s that, the act of rolling the dice that comes with cabaret, that will forever keep it partially in the shadows, and entirely tempting for audiences.