REVIEW: The Glitta Supernova Experience LET’S GET METAPHYSICAL

If I see sex glitter or r18 in the marketing of a small theatrical production, normally I will go the other way, but to have these ALL in the same show, claiming sex and politics on stage, and what with that awesome image of Glitta’s many heads swirling at the end of Kali-esque arms, I was feeling kind of curious and to be honest, ready to be affronted somehow.

I do have reference points: I remember learning about Annie Sprinkle getting the audience to queue to see her cervix, and suck on 100 dildoes in one show, that was in the eighties, or from the depths of my history watching a video of Divine at the old gluepot, having a shit behind a fence, there was also the time when I was in Berlin for the Love Parade, and regrettably turned down the invitation to film from the press bus roof, instead surrounded by half a million frotting perving and copulating performance artists for the day, and I can never forget the Burlesque arts party in Brooklyn I went to, that included a public sex orgy inside a three storey maze carved out of polystyrene…

but this is about me. I’m quite interested in the sexual political performance, after all.

I love accents. I have this theory that we pick up accents from the environment around us, and in Australia a lot of the women sound awfully like the birds of their country. For me Glitta’s voice carries traces of those Sydney Crows, bleating F**k Oorf! Or the parrots who sometimes scream “Ow My Gord!” Glitta describes herself as a performance artist, and I would say that this is true of her show. It’s not theatre, because it’s missing something theatre does which is storytelling. It certainly has other elements in it, which I enjoyed: that accent, and the high glam performance, combined with mask, certain types at least, perhaps archetypes of sex mask, but my favourite was the green bucket used to ‘decapitate’ Glitta, leaving just her body visible as a naked headless woman, until she turned the bucket around with a hole cut in it, transformed momentarily into an iron helmet. Well at least the potential is there for it to be an iron helmet. I am prepared to do quite a lot of the work myself if indeed it is a performance art piece, not a theatre piece, but not ALL the work!

Glitta’s work is all about her audience. I will tell you now, that is why she is going to get very mixed reviews. But the potential is there to titillate, and then turn the sexual objectification on its head, to really storm the room with Kali, though the robot dancing was pretty energetic. She’s toying with the macabre, and embracing the grotesque. All the stripping was desexed; her body rendered nondescript by her own treatment of herself on stage, clothes on clothes off clothes on again, neuroticisms short circuiting. All the demonstrative sexual content was removed from the room and contained in a couple of video projections… I assume, that by the time the star has exploded and the supernova is in decline, you might feel that you don’t want to blowjob the pot plant time and time again if you don’t have to. You know, I once saw a documentary about a group of strippers going through the process of being re-employed or fired on the basis of their age and pertness. Glitta fiddles with her nipples in the most defunct way you can imagine a nipple fiddle, and she brings a universal failure of sex object under a male gaze to the fore.

The show was tongue in cheek, sometimes literally, but it wasn’t clearly demarcated with any defiance so the effect is one of a tired angry pornstar, who describes herself as a sex clown, but also as a monster.

Well I say, if you’re going to go all “monster supernova”, and put it on stage you do have to deliver, and I saw no monster. Instead my lingering memory, is when the show finished, and I heard the voice for the first time, of the woman who’s picture is in the middle of her poster. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her once her strong accent was dropped, as she bowed and thanked the audience.

By the time I had my selfie with Glitta, her strong accent was back, there was no sign of the girl on the poster, and I have to say she deflects all responsibility back to the audience with something verging on a true Brechtian distancing effect. Verfremdungeseffekte! This show is all about questioning the performance and yourself. Am I happy am I enjoying myself am I meant to be?

But it’s definitely not Brecht, nor is it the Weimar republic.

Hit the extreme notes more extremely, Let’s see Kali! Let’s see Bodicaea, and the Monster, decide who your audience is and let’s actually drop the mask and see her in the show. That real girl. She’s the most interesting character and she didn’t get a chance. This I would advise if it were theatre.

But it’s not, it’s performance art. I wouldn’t want it in my hallway, but it’s valid, nonetheless, as part of the milieu of genre, simply framed, as long as you’re prepared to do a lot of the work yourself.

REVIEW: Genevieve McClean