Philippa Hawker

A do-it-yourself Gone with the Wind is deeply camp, writes Philippa Hawker.

ASH Flanders and Declan Greene have been working on their theatrical project Sisters Grimm for six years, building an audience and a reputation, yet somehow managing to set their shows in increasingly smaller spaces. 

They started out in theatres, but their latest production is a drag-queen Gone with the Wind in a Thornbury garage. Audiences will experience, says Flanders, "a big performance style in a big genre, two centimetres from your nose". 

Summertime in the Garden of Eden, which opens next week, is more than Gone with the Wind; it's Southern Gothic a go-go: the familiar elements, as Flanders puts it, of "grand secrets, treachery, pride, fallen women and strong men, drinking and sex and heat and a bit of love". And Tennessee Williams is an inevitable presence, with, Greene says, his trademark themes of "ageing, self-hating gay secrets, interracial love, culture and travel". 

Since their previous project, evil-child-centred Little Mercy, in 2010, Sisters Grimm had been doing short-form work in nightclubs -- locations that suit their lo-fi, DIY aesthetic. They did some things with the Last Tuesday Society, "who have a cult following, doing very popular throw-together nights all over town". This included an event called Pimp My Play, in which a classic Australian theatre piece was divided among a range of artists. Nick Enright's Blackrock was the play, Sisters Grimm were given a party scene, which they ended up presenting as a full-on Southern homecoming with a whiff of Streetcar Named Desire. 

They wanted to build on what they'd done working with the same three characters: Agent Cleave, a goth burlesque male pole dancer; Mzzz Erin Tasmania, a nightclub host and cabaret performer who runs a dress-up party in Amsterdam called Club Vegas; and Mummy Complex a young alternative drag queen. 

They are all experienced performers, but they don't usually work with scripts. Greene and Flanders produced a script that they say is "actually quite serious". 

It is, according to Greene, "an earnest attempt to replicate the speech and rhythms of the genre". It's not over-the-top, because it doesn't need to be, Flanders says. 

"You can't have larger-than-life people doing larger-than-life texts." And, he adds, "watching rehearsal, there were some oddly heart-tugging moments". 

They imagine, they say, that the show will change from night to night -- after all, says Flanders, the main cast are "solo performing artists who are attention whores and they have a whole bag of tricks to pull out". 

How many people will they be able to fit in alongside the hooped skirts? Maybe 40, they reckon. "There will be some standing room, some sitting room, some hanging from the rafters, some sitting on a trannie's lap." 

Looking ahead, Sisters Grimm would like to give themselves some new possibilities. 

"We love the rough-and-ready aspect of just throwing together a piece of work very fast, with a bunch of friends, with no budget," Greene says. 

"But after six years of doing this we're eager to see how our practice could evolve with institutional or financial support, and it's been difficult to find theatre companies or funding bodies who are willing to recognise our work as legitimate artistic expression, because it's so trashy and camp and, on the surface, meaningless." 

Last year, they had a breakthrough, however. Greene had done some work with the Sydney Theatre Company, and the STC was interested enough to bring in Sisters Grimm for a week of development, looking at Little Mercy. 

It was a wonderful experience, they say, and they hope something will come of it. 

The DIY element is still important to them, Greene says. "It's just that it can be frustrating when you're not given the chance to grow. And that's why doing the Sydney Theatre Company development was so meaningful for us." 

Summertime In The Garden Of Eden begins on February 22 (preview) 

HOWARD BRENTON'S 'Sore Throats is a curious mixture of the coarse and the poetic. A couple in the throes of divorce carry on a kind of Punch and Judy relationship, where familiarity has bred contempt and cruelty in equal portions. When the husband leaves for Canada with his lover, the wife takes in a female lodger. She shifts the whole balance of power between husband and wife, which is more than evident on his return. Brenton concentrates on the power relationships between men and women. Sometimes it seems that his ruthlessness on the subject is a form of misogyny, and he has decided that the best form of defence is attack. The Masque Ensemble have taken a stylised approach to the piece. It works mostly but it tends to obscure the shifts of tone Brenton uses, and it undervalues the desperate comedy that erupts like acne through the play. Simon Fisher's production takes place in an upstairs room at the old One-C-One folk club in North Carlton. The audience is seated randomly and informally on cushions and chairs. Kate Joyce's set design is intriguing, and suits the style of the interpretation well. It makes an interesting contrast to the more naturalistic and knockabout production that took place at the Pram Factory two years ago.