Latitude Festival 2009 - Friday: Part II
Taking some time out from the theatre and cabaret, I catch Regina Spector working hard to earn those comparisons to Tori Amos. While it is trite just to compare artists because they are female- I have heard Kate Nash set alongside Kate Bush, a connection that has been exposed by Frisky and Mannish in their parody of Wuthering Heights to hysterical deconstruction- Spector really does have Amos’ lyrical intensity and melodic melodrama. But after watching Nabokov, such a conventional rock routine does little for me. I disappear for La John Joseph.
Joseph is a gender-punk drag-queen, full of New York sardonic bite and monstrous egotism that is only tempered by some fairly straight-forward left-wing politicking. His delivery is dry, arch and awkward in the early evening, making little connection with the audience. He has an idea for the telling detail, and a clear self-awareness of the contradiction between glamour and the underlying exploitation that allowed him to survive and thrive in New York, as the barbed asides and tales of high times and low life are meticulously observed. It is difficult to say whether La John is the victim of the arena, or is just too far in the thrall of Penny Arcade, the confrontational spoken word artist who is his mentor. And if the mixture of song and monologue is classic drag queen territory, the story is sincere and personal.
There is a tension, at least for me, at Latitude, between the role of the general arts in attendance and the music. A few years ago, I had found that music wasn’t working for me as it had in the past. The energy and meaning I’d discovered in pop and rock was emerging in other places. I might be looking forward to seeing Nick Cave, but I’d probably be as happy watching the first attempts of a recent Live Art graduate.
I came to Latitude to consider this division, and still admire the festival for exploring the context of music and theatre. The tension isn’t unpleasant, only challenging. Perhaps the arts will feed and breed with each other.
The Bush Theatre took me aback. I’d heard that they had a reputation for enthusiastic performances that break the stranglehold of polite scripting. They use audience interaction sparingly, yet the cast of four in Suddenlossofdignity.com quickly had the applause and laughter interrupting the short, short sketches.
Suddenloss is made up of found stories, embarrassing confessions sent in by the public and worked into ninety minutes of humour and pathos. They impress in their ability to switch from bawdy to tragic in seconds, like when a wedding speech appears to be a typical “friend has too much to drink” routine yet lurches into a harrowing revelation of the groom’s conduct.
They sing, they dance (badly if the situation happens to be a nightclub narrative of over-confidence and shame), they leaven the dark with the funny, and use story-telling, comedy sketches, and dramatic monologues. By being willing to leap from form to form, and mood to mood, they hold the audience, even when the Pet Shop Boys are playing next door.