Official Reviewer of the Sydney Fringe at CarriageWorks (ORotSFaC)
Review #3: Clammy Glamour from the Curio-Cabinet
By Diane Wanasawage

A ‘cabinet’ of ‘curiosities’, hey? Uncatalogued things, hmm?
 
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT??!!
 
Spooky music I can deal with. Darkness and creepy things crawling all over the stage I can deal with.
 
OH MY GOD!!
 
There were scary things like a big butcher’s knife and an abundance of black make-up of course, but we are veterans of Burton and NCIS, and we can imagine this violent, risky dream world they present to us with a gleeful, guilt-free pleasure.
 
Oh yeah - a bit of death. That’s perfectly reasonable, perfectly artistic and beautiful.
 
Mr Villain with top-hat and tuxedo: I wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley, but I’m quite comfortable with seeing you on the stage. You’re part of the narrative – you make me think about masters of the circus, doctors who make Frankensteins, lords of underworlds, baddies who eventually get done by the sexy-but-clean goodie at the end.
 
You make me appreciate the beauty in the other characters by comparison, even though they are all ghastly in some way – dolls in Elizabethan dress who step on each others faces and drag you by the hair, corseted spider-lady with superlong legs that lures you in and traps you, if you’re lucky enough sirs.
 
My boyfriend thought the play should be called Alice in Circusland. It did have the rabbit, the corsetry, Trapeedle Dee and Trapeedle Dum TM. It also had Miss Stilts/Spider lady, Hunchback/Skeleton, Lizard-thing, other black spider lady, and a couple of human ‘innocents’ thrown in.
 
This is not the same circus I saw as a kid.
 
Oh &%*^*!!!!! DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!!!
 
It wasn’t the fantasy that frightened me. It was the reality.
 
I saw a group of real, live humans REALLY throwing themselves down ropes sky high. I saw them hanging by one ankle, one wrist, without nets below them, without helmets or harnesses or mats underneath, for most of the show. I saw one women who seemed to have the sort of legs dolls have, that can move all the way around in one direction and the other while the rest of the body stays perfectly still, suspended in the air.
 
Was there anybody who wasn’t amazed at these feats? And not only were they madly athletic and brave, but it was breathtaking to think of the time and expertise put behind such precise movements.
 
The drama was in the movement – from sudden falls and giant swings, to dancing through hoops and ropes and ribbons like fish do in water.
 
Your reaction is instinctual when you watch Clammy Glamour from the Curio Cabinet at Eveleigh’s Carriageworks. My heart was always in my mouth, unless it was in my gut, or sometimes in my throat as I watched their near-impossible feats.This was not just the illusion of danger, I was quite sure. This was real danger, the stuff mum told you not to try.
 
And it’s just as watchable.

DATES & TIMES
Friday 17 September 9.45pm &
Thursday 23 September 9.45pm

TICKETS
Full $24 / Conc $20 (additional booking fees may apply)

BOOK NOW Ticketmaster 1300 723 038 or click here. You can also purchase tix at the venue from one hour prior to show.