Again, You Have Trusted Me | Sarah Stafford
Most times when something is billed as a ‘gothic horror’ it’s in a kind of haha way, perhaps an ironic Addams Family-flavour or a cute dramatic story with an excess of black clothing. In this case, Sarah Stafford has created a really truly Australian gothic horror, half homage to Australian family connections and half a sharp drop into the truly dark side of suburbia. An absurdist theatre-documentary, it drops in on her family story after her grandfather Noel Casey passes away at the age of 84, and the ensuing drama of a simple game of cards between his surviving wife and four daughters.
It’s always interesting going off to see an artist you fangirl over, as I do Stafford. On one hand you have an expectation of a certain calibre of work and also perhaps an anticipated flavour of work. On the other is sets you up for over anticipation, and of course, there is always a risk in pigeon-holing the range of a familiar artist. I felt a frisson of fangirl enthusiasm in the opening night crowd who laughed too easily and too loudly at the foundation set-up, back when the show still lets you think you are still here to have a nice time. And indeed Stafford’s other work under her nom de plume PolyLezSlut is wry, highly amusing, political and mocking, delicious to watch in amongst other less-firey acts at a cabaret or disco. I sense a crowd that expects more of same. But here she has leaned into a much darker style of work.
I think I’m a fan because Stafford can silence a room as easily as she can get one onside, and that’s a skill, an artist that makes work that’s rough and stabby and is Not For Everyone. It’s so refreshing actually. I actually can’t think of another work I’ve seen in ages that felt so sharp-edged, so dark in style and tone as this strange tragic tonic.
The piece starts of innocuously enough, with a monologue performed atop a ludicrously gigantic chair. It was peculiarly personal, offering up Stafford’s personal family as characters in the play, who were there to amuse us, to be venerated, to be found guilty as charged and to be offered redemption too. It wandered across the line between personal confessional, close-up social documentary and surreal dip into a world of dangerous painted-face clowns. Our narrator was untrustworthy, selfish, delectable, ranting. It was a reminder that outside of our lovely bohemian lives here in the inner city we all have families, and not all of them are as picture perfect as the sitcoms. Families are messy. Families are real. Family knows how to twist the knife. Come what may, family remains sacrosanct.
The show is now in full swing and we are witness to scenes of increasing surrealism, with projections and home-video footage beamed across the stage. The phone rings and a voice from the past speaks. Stafford approaches a camera at the centre front of the stage and we see her face and body projected into scenes of grandeur and madness above and behind. It’s always fascinating the triptych of artist in scene, artist in close up, and artist projected into another world. All happening simultaneously. It’s wildly beautiful and confusing to watch. The opening night run was bumpy but for all that we can see the brush strokes I am so excited by the projection alliance between Stafford and regular collaborator Alex Hines. This is the second time I have seen these two collab in this medium and it’s so fantastic to watch.
I’m conflicted by the feelings that arise, these Queensland women offered up for our entertainment. Those of us who have family back up the way in Bundy, Mt Isa, Rocky, know that these are our aunties, our neighbours, and although they are rough as guts they are loved as deeply. Its complicated. Hearing an inner city audience laugh at their mannerisms felt icky. Only I get to laugh at me and mine. I’d love to see what happens if this show goes out into the scrub The darker storylines serve as a reminder that its all to easy to laugh, but these women have endured tough lives, lives that are unrelenting in their misfortunes served in heavy doses to the weak and poor.
What is Australian gothic when you drill down into it? When you discard the sports jokes and the cliches of white suburban life? Is it a reckoning with the incongruity of us, broken people from a hundred countries, all chasing a better life, trying to find ourselves in this red desert land where the true way of life is completely foreign to our limited understandings? Alongside the lucky country jibes the colony offers us up the very darkest of gallows humour. Is it the callous truth that ours are scarred people? Maybe we’re white trash just trying to hold on with both hands to whatever joy we can scrape out of the colony. What is shocking to a people immured in generations of violence?
Great show, I’ll probably go watch it again, I thought it was so interesting and gave me much to think about.
