‘80s city heart

Queen’s City (Blak Social)

QPAC, Cremorne Theatre

September 21 – 24

Alethea Beetson’s“Queen’s City” is full of imaginative ideas that on their own could each easily sustain an engaging piece of theatre. Together, they are a lot, meaning that there is much to take away from this new theatre work inspired by missing narratives and rewritten histories in the story of ‘urban’ colonisation as often depicted in museum collections and archives

The provocative show is set in the nostalgic ‘80s in the titular fictional capital city location of Queen’s City, where dreams can supposedly come true. With Queen’s Coast theme parks just to the south and a boundary street division location about to be demolished to make way for culturally significant attractions, including a museum to celebrate the city’s history, as part of upcoming bicentennial celebrations, its resonance as Brisbane is barely veiled, and nor does it need to be.

The story mostly takes place in the heart of the city at All Ways Skate + Sing, which is run by local matriarch Truth. The karaoke bar and skating rink hot spot is a space of equality for all the mob, so when threat of losing it looms large from the government and state institutions on the other side of Restriction Avenue, its riff raff family of attendants Justice, Magick and Grace mobilise to try and save it.

This debut work from performance collective Blak Social (presented by Brisbane Festival, Screen Queensland and Queensland Performing Arts Centre Present) has been many years in the making, resulting in a finely-tuned craftedness to some of its aspects. It’s writing is clever and its humour is spot-on, particularly in its peppering of politically-toned potential pickup lines. While all performers give enthusiastic performances, however, varying dialogue vocal levels mean that impact sometimes fluctuates.

The creativity cresendos when the story sees characters transporting into the past courtesy of the Space Invader and Pac-Man et al arcade game machines that feature as part of its nostalgically neon set. The show is a long one though at 1 hour 40 minutes without interval and it sometimes feels it, as the time travelling storyline sees repeat of previously seen conversations.

Karaoke also features as a vehicle for its storytelling. Song keeper vocalists guide us through the story, signal the occasional song and keep the soundscape on-point beyond expectations of a ‘typical’ indigenous play. Their fourth wall breaks add yet another, this time meta-theatre, layer to all that is going on, however, their rocking original musical numbers both guide things along with plot information (helped by of-the-era karaoke style appearance of their lyrics on screen) and help to cement the show’s ‘80s sensibilities.

“Queen’s City” is a big work. Part gig, part theatre show, part political commentary, its multi-genre approach is all focussed on highlighting the danger of silence and showing how looking back is needed to move forward from our previously unbalanced, singular storytelling. Telling its first nations stories through the modality of the ‘80s works to not only make them accessible in new and interesting ways, but forces contemplation of if first nations art makers had the space then that they do now. And the fun of its ‘80s glam rock aesthetic adds another layer, building upon its visual nostalgia and its ‘Time After Time’ type of musical memories.