Cowboy cliches rule in Brisbane Festival show
Growing up queer in central Queensland, performer Michael Smith wanted to be a cowboy. Now he’s made an intriguing Brisbane Festival show about it, with a jangling western-style soundtrack by Regurgitator’s Ben Ely.
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It’s one of the more unusual local arts offerings at this weekend’s opening program at Brisbane Festival – a show about aspiring to be a cowboy by a bloke who grew up queer in Gladstone. That wasn’t always fun for dancer and actor Michael Smith of The Farm, a Gold Coast outfit that is at the cutting edge of contemporary performance.
Smith is an unabashed fan of Cowboy movies though and that inspired his show, an immersive interactive theatre experience held at the New Benner Theatre at the Metro Arts which has now relocated to West Village at West End. Go and check out the new premises with its cool gallery spaces and there’s even a rather funky bar.
For Cowboy the audience stands around with bandannas over our faces which is a kind of cowboy look but also meets health requirements.
Into the centre of the floor springs Smith in his cowboy clobber and hat. He’s none too successful with his lasso and he gets into a bit of trouble when he drinks too much. There’s a bar fight scene of course, there has to be in a cowboy story and he engages the audience in this with attendant sound effects including a honky tonk piano.
Sitting by a makeshift campfire he plays the harmonica and laments the loneliness of the cowboy life. Because we are all so familiar with the cowboy theme everyone can relate to it in some way although he takes the story further and make his cowboy a poignant and somewhat tragic figure.
Smith watched a few cowboy movies developing his show which he performed in Germany and Spain last year.
“I kind of fell in love with the genre from High Noon onwards,” he told me. “In the work I ask questions such as – what is it to be a cowboy today? What is it to be a man? What is it to be a queer man? I grew up in Gladstone where there were certain ideas about what a man does and being a queer person and I use that personal history inside the work.”
When we spoke I couldn’t help mentioning Brokeback Mountain and he laughed. “This is Brokeback Mountain part two,” he said. He was joking, to a degree.
Ben Ely was inspired by the music of Ennio Morricone and others in devising his score which is evocative and really quite brilliant.
It’s a short show, around 45 minutes and there is never a dull moment. Do we believe Smith is a cowboy? You’re damn tootin’ we do. Not sure what John Wayne would have thought of it all but we loved it. His last show is on Sunday afternoon but let’s hope he reboots it again soon. I think a return season at Metro Arts would be well received. In the meantime there are a range of shows on at Metro Arts during Brisbane Festival in the coming weeks so check out Brisbane’s newest arts venue. It’s a welcome addition to the West Village precinct.
Michael Smith is also starring in the forthcoming Brisbane Festival show Throttle, a drive in experience with a horror movie theme. That will be held at the Brisbane Showgrounds from Sept 23-26 and is touted as “a B-grade thriller from the safety of your own car”. Can’t wait.
brisbanefestival.com.au