Dick Swingin" - Old Fitz

Dick Swingin’ 

Old Fitz Theatre

Teale Howie’s Dick Swingin’ arrives with a provocative title and an intriguing premise: a travelling vaudevillian who performs every act in his own freak show, using a succession of personas to explore what it means to be a man. Originally developed during the 2020 lockdown as Who’s the Man? the work returns in a new iteration, promising more bite and considerably more camp.

Howie’s starting point is compelling. A musical-theatre-trained queer who grew up in butch regional Queensland, he brings a specificity to the question of masculinity that could take the work beyond a familiar critique of masculine conventions. The childhood context establishes the possibility of a genuine struggle between the person one is and the person one learns to perform.

Yet this material feels underexplored. The show unfolds as a kaleidoscope of scenes and snapshots, each offering another glimpse of the personas Howie inhabits but does not build tension into greater emotional or psychological complexity. We see the characters, and something of what might have produced them, but the connective tissue remains elusive. The childhood material feels like the beginning of a deeper story that the show never pursues.

Howie’s writer’s note situates the revival against the contemporary backdrop of the manosphere, toxic masculinity and the emotional straitjackets imposed on boys. These are fertile themes, but they did not register with the force one might expect. The show points towards something gritty and potentially uncomfortable without taking us there.

Perhaps the difficulty is that Howie is so immediately charming. He has the makings of a deliciously dangerous showman, someone capable of seducing an audience even as he unsettles it. But the performance isn’t willing to risk that audience’s affection. There are dick jokes aplenty, and Howie has the comic timing and theatrical instincts to make them land. The audience responded enthusiastically clearly delighted by the performance. Could the camp to become a little more dangerous, for the showman’s polished persona to crack, and for the humour to reveal something that might otherwise remain hidden?

I wanted Howie to venture further into the darker, messier territory his premise promises, where the joke might give way to something more vulnerable or confronting.

This is an interesting quandary for a show concerned with the performance of masculinity.

 Where Dick Swingin’ succeeds is in its theatrical economy. Legit Theatre (Producer Mathew Lee) brings together a terrific team. Leisel Badorrek as director brings her considerable experience to the production, keeping things moving. Ruby Jenkins’ design provides a distinct visual language within the constraints of the Old Fitz’s late-night format, where productions must accommodate the set of the main show. A swathe of red fabric sashays through the space; a simple red staircase becomes a performance platform; a suitcase holds the props of the travelling show. These are elegant, economical gestures that establish the world without overburdening it. The band, Clay Crighton and Aisling Bermingham, occupies a corner of the space, reinforcing the intimacy and immediacy of the cabaret form.

Musically, Crighton’s compositions and arrangements demonstrate a consummate talent. The musical world gives the show much of its shape and atmosphere, while Bermingham’s sound design sits alongside the classics to help create a cohesive sound. The looseness of the performance feels, to a degree, inherent in the form: cabaret invites informality, play and a sense of risk.

The talent across the team is this apparent, we are willing to forgive some rough edges.

Looseness and a lack of dramatic development are not quite the same thing. The question is whether the snapshots accumulate into something more revealing, or whether the pleasure of watching Howie transform himself becomes an end in itself.

Dick Swingin’ has the ingredients for a more searching work: a distinctive personal history, a fertile theatrical conceit, musical intelligence and a performer with considerable charm. It is an entertaining, often engaging cabaret, and its enthusiastic reception suggests that its pleasures are readily shared. Could it risk more? To venture beyond the joke and into the messier, less comfortable territory its premise opens up?

The show promises bite. I wanted to feel a little more of the sting.

Review by Kate Gaul

Image: Patrick Phillips