The Naked MC by Sista She
Old Fitzroy Hotel
Tamarama Rock Surfers
Wednesday 11th July 2007
Edited version as printed in today's The Daily Telegraph.
(After submitting it, my editor is now heckling me and demanding I wear bling and baseball caps to every show I review from here on in...)
It’s rhyme, it’s hip-hop, it’s the Sista She Massive taking over Woolloomoolo’s The Old Fitzroy Hotel. And when they talk about getting naked, they mean emotional exposure.
As theoretical debates about multicultural casting continue all around them, along come three women with a piece of theatre that takes on the real issues of race, racism and stereotypes not only within theatre but in their society.
The performers, Rasheda Eda MC (Candy Bowers), Sheila MC Eila (Sarah Ward) and Busty Beats (Kim Bowers) hunch on backstreet stairs in hoodies in an image straight out of a hipity-hop gangsta video clip.
Their show soon takes the form of a protest. In hip-hop narrative, the performers bare their souls on racism, beauty and sexuality. Skit comedy softens the blow of the confronting words in their engaging stories.
It’s a shame that the raw substance of this show isn’t supported by better staging and lighting techniques. Despite this, it comes from the heart. Its passion is disarming and its stories revealing. Sista She, for what it’s worth, are the bomb.
Photo Credit: Barnaby Norris
Friday, 13 July 2007
Review: The Naked MC
Posted by Nicholas Pickard at 12:29 pm
Labels: Independent Theatre, Local Culture, Review
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1 comments:
Yes, I saw Sista She last night and loved it!! Certainly in terms of the casting/ethnicity talk on this blog site this is one show really getting out there. In terms of content and style. In fact I saw Candy Bowers in a production of DUCK last year - an irish play which to memory also features an asian and dark mediterranean performers. It was one of the best show of the year. It was irish. it featured a cast that looked like the world I live in and was all the richer for it.
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