Tadhg Mackay
I loved going to the circus as a child. I would watch the performers achieve superhuman feats with awe and sit on the edge of my seat gaping at the risks being taken. While there may not have been a big top tent in Te Auaha's Tapere Nui, I felt that same joy nonetheless.
As we enter the space we are greeted with an impressive caravan, bunting, and a tent entrance. On stage fussing about are the ‘Rowdy Roustabouts’, introducing us to the best thing about doing a show about a show; the diegetic stage-hands. Accompanying them with a ditty is a fiddler played by Show Pony, perhaps practicing for a performance in the tent. Show Pony provides most of the music throughout the show in fact, helping invite the audience into the world. This is a story about a circus family and setting the show behind the tent puts the emphasis on the people behind the performers. While the caravan is remarkable, my favourite set design choice from Erin Belcher and Gogo Amy was the clothesline strung between the tent and the caravan, grounding the high-flying wahine. This, alongside the live music, effectively sets the ‘back-stage’ so to speak.
The story follows a family dealing with the loss of their father and how to get by without him. Maisie, played by Booth the Clown, is a loveable younger sibling exploring their identity within the expected roles thrust upon them. Annie, the older sister played by Laura Oakley, is desperately trying to hold her family up amidst the strife they’ve found themselves in. No help comes from their mother, played by Rachel Winter Hase, who instead seeks the bottom of a bottle to ease her worries. Each cast member shines. Booth has the audience hanging off the end of every gag, Oakley is an incredibly talented performer seemingly with the skills of an entire circus troupe under her belt, and Hase has some truly poignant moments as the matriarch. The family dynamic is great and I get the sense there was a pre-established rapport between them.
Now, this is a circus show so I would be remiss not to mention the spectacle Dangerous Darlings manage to put on in Tapere Nui, a space not designed with this kind of act in mind. Every now and then the story would take a back seat to the feats of the trio. Oakley was especially impressive, both on the ground and off. Her awkward aerial hoop act with Booth was a highlight for me. Not only was it hilarious to watch the performers get tangled dangling above the floor, but it made sense in the narrative. The Fabelinskys were desperate to earn more coin from their manager and so resorted to acts the girls had not performed since childhood. Jen McArthur did a great job of weaving each circus act into the narrative in a way that made sense and elevated it, both metaphorically and literally. A part of me wished there was just one more circus act. I don’t know how it would be done without jacking up the runtime or dropping some character moments but I loved the spectacle and wanted more.
Jokes in this script are plentiful, often referencing things only a kiwi would understand. It also references the “suffering tits”, or more correctly, the suffragettes. The story is set in New Zealand, not long after the suffragettes had fought for, and earned, the right to vote. It was quite a clever choice by Hase (who also wrote the show) to set it alongside these events as it plays as an excellent parallel to the Fabelinsky family. While one would assume that with the fathers’s death, this show is all about grief, you would be wrong. Each character is struggling within the constraints men have put upon them. Maisie is struggling against a woman’s role, whether or not she identifies with that or something more masculine. Mama Fabelinsky is both grieving her husband but also grappling with how he would bring her down and away from the spotlight that she had earned. Annie is the most heartbreaking, having the responsibility of the circus thrust upon her after her father told her she was never strong enough.
Each character's story and hardship comes to a solid resolution at the end of the show but I was not fully satisfied with their trajectory through the entire show. Annie felt like the audience's focal point from the start of the show. She goes through some true hardships to put it lightly, and she manages to find strength within herself but then it feels like her character steps back for the rest of the show. Perhaps the intention was to show that some things cannot be ‘solved’ which in itself is an important message but if that was the case then I feel like it could have been acknowledged. Mama Fabelinsky has the opposite problem. At first I thought she may have been a pseudo antagonist to the siblings. It was only until maybe halfway through the show that she became a character I could get behind. I suppose that may be intentional due tothe relationship with her late husband and her past. There is some great symbolism in Mama’s circus act, but I feel the build to it forced her children out of the spotlight. Now, I myself am not trans/NB but my read of Maisie was that they were exploring their gender identity as a trans or NB character, relishing moments of masculinity and resenting wearing the puffiest dress you’ve ever seen. I feel the show never fully commits to this idea as at the end of the show Maisie is happy to be a “Girl Clown”. Breaking that barrier for women is an excellent message but that’s not where I thought their story was headed. Though I wrote a lot about this subject, I don’t think it takes away from the amazing story and the overarching narrative about fighting against the patriarchy works well.
The Fabulous Fabelinksys is the show I had hoped for going in. A meaningful story accented with incredible acrobatic feats all while portraying a grounded family going through real hardship. More information here.
The story follows a family dealing with the loss of their father and how to get by without him. Maisie, played by Booth the Clown, is a loveable younger sibling exploring their identity within the expected roles thrust upon them. Annie, the older sister played by Laura Oakley, is desperately trying to hold her family up amidst the strife they’ve found themselves in. No help comes from their mother, played by Rachel Winter Hase, who instead seeks the bottom of a bottle to ease her worries. Each cast member shines. Booth has the audience hanging off the end of every gag, Oakley is an incredibly talented performer seemingly with the skills of an entire circus troupe under her belt, and Hase has some truly poignant moments as the matriarch. The family dynamic is great and I get the sense there was a pre-established rapport between them.
Now, this is a circus show so I would be remiss not to mention the spectacle Dangerous Darlings manage to put on in Tapere Nui, a space not designed with this kind of act in mind. Every now and then the story would take a back seat to the feats of the trio. Oakley was especially impressive, both on the ground and off. Her awkward aerial hoop act with Booth was a highlight for me. Not only was it hilarious to watch the performers get tangled dangling above the floor, but it made sense in the narrative. The Fabelinskys were desperate to earn more coin from their manager and so resorted to acts the girls had not performed since childhood. Jen McArthur did a great job of weaving each circus act into the narrative in a way that made sense and elevated it, both metaphorically and literally. A part of me wished there was just one more circus act. I don’t know how it would be done without jacking up the runtime or dropping some character moments but I loved the spectacle and wanted more.
Jokes in this script are plentiful, often referencing things only a kiwi would understand. It also references the “suffering tits”, or more correctly, the suffragettes. The story is set in New Zealand, not long after the suffragettes had fought for, and earned, the right to vote. It was quite a clever choice by Hase (who also wrote the show) to set it alongside these events as it plays as an excellent parallel to the Fabelinsky family. While one would assume that with the fathers’s death, this show is all about grief, you would be wrong. Each character is struggling within the constraints men have put upon them. Maisie is struggling against a woman’s role, whether or not she identifies with that or something more masculine. Mama Fabelinsky is both grieving her husband but also grappling with how he would bring her down and away from the spotlight that she had earned. Annie is the most heartbreaking, having the responsibility of the circus thrust upon her after her father told her she was never strong enough.
Each character's story and hardship comes to a solid resolution at the end of the show but I was not fully satisfied with their trajectory through the entire show. Annie felt like the audience's focal point from the start of the show. She goes through some true hardships to put it lightly, and she manages to find strength within herself but then it feels like her character steps back for the rest of the show. Perhaps the intention was to show that some things cannot be ‘solved’ which in itself is an important message but if that was the case then I feel like it could have been acknowledged. Mama Fabelinsky has the opposite problem. At first I thought she may have been a pseudo antagonist to the siblings. It was only until maybe halfway through the show that she became a character I could get behind. I suppose that may be intentional due tothe relationship with her late husband and her past. There is some great symbolism in Mama’s circus act, but I feel the build to it forced her children out of the spotlight. Now, I myself am not trans/NB but my read of Maisie was that they were exploring their gender identity as a trans or NB character, relishing moments of masculinity and resenting wearing the puffiest dress you’ve ever seen. I feel the show never fully commits to this idea as at the end of the show Maisie is happy to be a “Girl Clown”. Breaking that barrier for women is an excellent message but that’s not where I thought their story was headed. Though I wrote a lot about this subject, I don’t think it takes away from the amazing story and the overarching narrative about fighting against the patriarchy works well.
The Fabulous Fabelinksys is the show I had hoped for going in. A meaningful story accented with incredible acrobatic feats all while portraying a grounded family going through real hardship. More information here.