The Bus Out Back

Review: Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Lyric Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane

Fans are at fever pitch. It’s Grand Finals weekend for two Aussie football codes. You’d be forgiven for thinking you’d walked into the wrong stadium if you were at the Lyric Theatre, Brisbane. After ten years absence 2000 screaming fans let everyone know who they had pinned their colours too. The crowd was cheering long before the team bus lurched into view. Such is the love for Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

The musical, driven by the movie’s success, has outstripped everyone’s expectation to the point of international acclaim. Priscilla holds icon status. Legions of fans get on board taking to the road with three men in drag, the most unlikely lovable leading ladies. Not a far cry from the movie, a different cry.

With no intimate filmic close-ups, no breathtaking Aussie outback panoramas to set mood and place stage Priscilla plays broadly at a cracking pace. Loud, brassy, potty-mouthed (at times), vibrant, funny, heart-warming always looking for the next gag or segue into a brash disco hit given the full treatment – great voices, outrageous frocks, slick dancing, tongue planted firmly in cheek and shamelessly played full frontal. Breathless, fans scream for more.

Australian masculinity embodies images of rugged, brooding, solitary, no-nonsense, outdoorsy he-men. So, what is it about men in dresses? Returning to football; it’s not out of the ordinary for players to Donna Frock (yes, a drag queen name) at break-up parties after a brutal gladiatorial season. To slip into something feminine a welcome relief after performing extreme hypermasculinity. Just a bit of harmless fun. Success for Priscilla relies on the skill and dazzle of three fine actors who enter the charade of drag with conviction, aplomb, faultless make-up, outrageous hair-dos, and perilously high heels. Hard not to love them.

Tony Sheldon shows why he has won multiple awards as Bernadette the classic show-girl drag from an era now gone. Part Carlotta, part Rose Jackson. A delicious combination from the original Australian bench mark for drag, Les Girls. Bernadette seeks romantic love.

David Harris as Tick/Mitzi has the tighter rope to walk. Bored and despondent in the Sydney drag scene Tick receives a phone call from his ex-wife imploring him to come visit his child in Alice Springs. He is the primary driver of the show. Tick seeks the love and acceptance of his young son.

Euan Doige brazenly stalks and struts his godly sculptured physique all the while coquettishly pouting through every impish moment as Felicia/Adam. I unabashedly declare my love for Felicia right here. Mind you I’d be killed in the rush by 1000s of screaming theatre goers if last night’s performance is anything to go by. Felicia has one goal, to stand on Uluru miming to Kylie. “That’s all we need,” Bernadette declares. “A cock in a frock on a rock.”

A couple of pieces don’t sit well. Tick’s big number, Donna Summer’s disco version of MacArthur Park, grates. Even with the obvious setup from the preceding scene, the production number becomes an excuse for a costume parade. Cynthia, the Pinoy mail order bride dumped in Woop Woop is screamingly funny, yet achingly heartbreaking. Left unresolved and cast off, an object of derision and inherent Australian racism. An opportunity to condemn the Australian blood sport, poofter bashing lost. Felicia’s late-night encounter with the men of Coober Pedy is soft peddled. A harrowing approach gone begging.

Soaring above the production, a great ‘live’ device to get around drag queens who mime, The Divas. The ultimate girlie group mercilessly tear every song apart and put it all back in one perfect package. The band tight, the costumes spectacular, Priscilla, the bus, is a masterpiece of stage design and function. She is the perfect vehicle to cheer home.

Long before the final siren three tiers of the Lyric Theatre resound with screams, cheers, hoots and hollas from a delighted audience. Priscilla remains fresh as ever. The cast is uniformly wonderful though I cannot get past that potty mouthed minx Felicia, she is my sort of man!!!!!

Priscilla plays a limited season at the Lyric. Don’t drag your heels getting tickets.

Bookings: http://www.qpac.com.au

Production photography by Ben Symons