Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, right? Christmas carols and decorations and drinking and eating and seeing family and perhaps more drinking. It’s a celebration and a time of reflection and it’s commercial and sort of religious, but it’s not always the happiest or the most relaxed of seasons. For some people, it can be really tough.
Fuck
Christmas, by
theatre company Fat Fruit, is a mostly joyous show about how ridiculous and
silly and heartbreaking this celebration can be. Ten performers with wildly
varied performance backgrounds have come together to create an unforgettable
night of mayhem and delight. There are actors and singers and acrobats and
gymnasts and a sword-swallower and some real carny shenanigans happening on
stage at the Malthouse right now.
Fat Fruit’s
work is queer and body-positive, which already sets is apart from that
wholesome, respectable annual treat – Christmas Carols on Channel 9, live from
the Music Bowl. This show starts with a warning that the fat, middle-aged white
guy is coming to town to judge you and things escalate from there. John Marc
Desengano and Sarah Ward act as our Carols hosts, but the show has a much more
anarchic energy than sticking to that premise – it’s full of beautifully-choreographed
chaos. And so much nudity!
There’s an
elf of the shelf come to life, looking for revenge. There’s a polar bear, live
from the rapidly-melting icecaps of the North Pole. A nativity scene with the
three worst men, a talking Christmas cracker, a scene from Gremlins, a
creatively-decorated Christmas tree, songs and dancing and a moving ode to
children lost during war and genocide. Do they know it’s Christmas? Probably
not, they are trying to survive.
This show
is a blast from beginning to end and director Susie Dee keeps everything
rolling along without the whirlwind of random acts ever feeling like they are
out of hand.
I enjoyed A Christmas Carol last week and love that’s become an annual holiday
tradition in Melbourne. I really want Fuck Christmas to come back year after
year, too. Let those who might want to avoid a traditional sit-down meal with
their biological family find some joy in a room full of misfits – in an
audience of found family, who want to laugh at the absurdity of the season.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Fuck Christmas is playing at the Malthouse until December 14
Photos: Gregory Lorenzutti
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