REVIEW: Cowboy Dreaming (Basement) – Theatre Scenes: Aotearoa New Zealand Theatre

[The Ballad of Billy Bob and Bobby Bill]

Pale pink and white material clouds dangle in fluffy banks over the Basement Studio stage. On a single mattress are two, improbably nonetheless, denim-shorts-clad, cowboys. They lie on prime of one another, stacked like flapjacks, with solely the flashing of the silver studs on one among their belts giving the impression of motion. A big white sheet is strung between the billowing clouds and the mattress under, bisecting the Studio stage.

Within the lengthy moments earlier than the viewers fills the seats, and the lighting state adjustments from the preshow setting, we take on this picture of the cowboy at relaxation. He isn’t alone on the plains however resting in comfy companionship. This opening picture of repose, of quiet intimacy, is without doubt one of the most placing of the present.

Cowboy Dreaming is the newest providing from Lunar Collaborative, introduced beneath the route of Grace Augustine with devising help from Bridie Thomson and Kermath Davies. Billed as a improvement season, the work options Georgie Llewellyn and Emily Hurley in a wide range of acts together with lip syncs, strip teases, and comedic vignettes referencing the crooners of the previous or more moderen widespread tradition memes (for instance the satirical TV present Reno 911).

The present blends stay efficiency with a wealth of movie footage projected onto the massive dividing sheet. When the projector begins up the clouds tackle the pale glamour of the cinema curtains now solely seen in venues just like the Academy Cinema. It’s a stage inside a stage, efficiency inside a efficiency, a collection of desires inside the Lunar Collaborative dream.

I used to be curious to search out what this dream would provide by the use of commentary on, or subversion of, the acquainted Western tropes, the queer historical past of the Outdated West, and a latest resurgence of the cowboy determine in each queer and wider widespread tradition. Equally I questioned if there could be reference to the illusory nature of the cowboy narratives which regularly omit the colonialism on the coronary heart of Western Growth in America. The present made repeated use of movie footage from the 50s and 60s (suppose The Good, The Dangerous, and The Ugly, a full trailer for Johnny Guitar, all smashed along with sweaty late-stage Elvis clips and photographs of pounding, surging waves). Later within the work photos of gender bending appeared – clips of David Bowie at peak androgyny are performed, and Hurley presents a sputtering efficiency of ‘Life on Mars’. This amalgam of references definitely introduced many of those acquainted Western tropes to the fore, but when there was a deeper logic behind the alternatives made, in relation to the staged motion, it evaded me.  

The Elvis clips supplied Llewellyn and Hurley alternatives to have interaction in some shakin’ and a groanin’ which then result in ejaculations of varied varieties, however pushing this already performative and sexually provocative motion to the acute didn’t seem to disclose some new that means within the motion. 

One other clear second of connection between the movie footage and the stage motion was equally opaque in intention. One scene, in a mirroring of the motion of an earlier clip, noticed Hurley undressed after which slowly wearing a sequined night robe. I assumed this would possibly change into a remark upon the female physique and the way it’s served as much as viewers in both movie or theatre kinds, however this too appears to be a replica of the motion quite than a possibility to reveal some additional that means. 

I felt as if I used to be being tumbled within the waves crashing collectively on the display screen, a sense additional compounded by the Bowie clips which drastically depart from the established (and largely explicitly Western) references and symbols. Nonetheless, within the nature of a dream, maybe that is the purpose.

If you happen to let go of wanting a crucial evaluation of the determine of the ‘Cowboy’ the present gives many delights, significantly the magnetism of the 2 central performers. Llewellyn is tremendously gifted (as demonstrated of their excessive gentleness and pathos within the 2022 season of Chrome Dome and Schizo, and their manufacturing of side-splitting comedy in The Wedding ceremony). Over the course of Cowboy Dreaming, Llewellyn contorts themselves into rictuses of pleasure and ache in equal measure. It’s immensely satisfying to look at an actor so current, so consumed by the second of efficiency, that each fibre of the physique is engaged. Hurley is equally compelling in numerous roles together with that of a forlorn cowboy lover, an emotionless younger actor beset by a crazed casting agent, and as a human tumbleweed.

There are numerous moments which generated nice laughter from the viewers, and in addition moments which produced an environment of awe and contemplation, significantly these accompanied by the best Western music of all time (Ennio Morricone’s rating for Sergio Leone). I discovered unique footage of Hurley garbed in a poncho, Stetson, and cowboy boots striding throughout (what ) a West Coast seashore, oddly fascinating. Because the scene shifted to the Auckland CBD the curious glances of native punters felt as isolating because the desert-like expanse. Hurley’s cowboy was made an much more lonesome determine for travelling by populated locations, a relic of the previous adrift in our fashionable world. This was essentially the most lucid the dream grew to become, and the usage of this unique movie footage could possibly be made much more central to the work. 

The chance to sleep, to dream, to lie within the arms of your moustachioed lover is –if just for 90 minutes –a candy respite from the loneliness of the fashionable world. 

Cowboy Dreaming performs the Basement Theatre twenty seventh February to the 2nd of March 2024