It’s Lionel’s first time. You promise to be gentle, right?
Lionel is new at this. In fact, he's working it out as he goes along. Under duress from his terrifying German therapist to 'express himself', he has inadvertently found himself in a cabaret. Lionel draws on his limited knowledge of the style and formidable Wikipedia skills to hilariously stumble his way through his hour on stage. After covering sex, booze, boys and mythical beasts, he finds that maybe he's not so bad at expressing himself after all.
Kicking off 'Cabaret @ Cremorne', 'I Might Take My Shirt Off' is a 60-minute, solo, character-driven show of a man hilariously stumbling his way through his first time ever on stage. From the mischievous mind of one of Queensland's favourite actors, Dash Kruck and with original music by Chris Perren ('Nonsemble', 'Trollop') this show promises an evening of cabaret not soon forgotten.
Encouraging Lionel's first time of stage, Dash revisits some things he thought he'd never do in front of an audience:
Play a human fork
When you're going through acting school, learning your script analysis and delving into the depths of human emotion, you don't picture yourself graduating to play kitchen implements. It was a show that had been commissioned by the art gallery to introduce audiences to a particular artist's work (how me being a fork helped, I'm still unsure). I wore silver tights, a puffy silver jacket and, with the help of some sort of horrendous gelatine mixture, my hair was sculpted into three long spikes and spray painted silver. It was alright though, I wasn't alone – there was also a spoon and a knife in the team. Cutlery: changing the art world one scoop at a time.
Come on guys, you can't just slap on a suit and pretend to be cutlery. BE the fork.Play the part of Frank Woodley's flaccid penis
Admittedly, this role wasn't written in the list of characters, but who could pass it up? I got to work with Frank on the 'Monty Python' musical 'Spamalot' at QPAC, and Frank was playing the role of the French Taunter. In one section he taunts the British by saying, "I wave my private parts you". My arm provided the length and girth that the gag required. (On a related note, I've heard that length and girth have often been the cause of gagging.)
I really wanted to put the gif of Meat Spin here, but you know, nobody needs that image in their life again.Be backed by a live symphony orchestra
There's nothing really funny about this one. It's just kinda awesome and it fits the brief, so I thought I'd throw it in. I was playing the role of Puck in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The orchestra played the Mendelssohn score behind us on the stage as we acted out the story. Just friggin' magic.{youtube}0Oo4z37OUEI{/youtube}
To be honest... most things I do
As an actor, you can never predict what's coming next. So as well as playing some of the classic roles that I never dreamed I'd get the chance to play, (Romeo in 'Romeo and Juliet', Mozart in 'Amadeus', Judas in 'Jesus Christ Superstar') everyday brings new craziness. I've put on a terrible English accent while playing an all-singing, all-dancing caterpillar, I've played a half-dog/ half-boy in a show where I accidentally winded myself on an oversized roast turkey, I've played the embodiment of cancer, a garden gnome, an imaginary friend and an Arabian Prince. I've flown through the air, been shot, stabbed, hanged, crashed a WWII plane and sat on an audience member's face. All in a day's work, really.DASKH KRUCK's 'I Might Take My Shirt Off' TOUR DATES
Thurs 11 June – Cabaret @ Cremorne (Brisbane)Tues 23 – Sun 28 June – The Butterfly Club (Melbourne)
Sun 20 & Sun 27 Sept, Sun 11 Oct – Hayes Theatre Co (Sydney)
