BEWARE THE
BLOODYSNATCH.
date. May 2021
venue. Online and The Garrison Church, Woolwich (Tramshed)
mode. Digital and in person
director. Carla Keen
This is a short cabaret fragment which I developed on Dr Carnesky's Radical Cabaret School and explored period taboos through the lens of Alice in Wonderland.
Why Alice? Her body is continually changing (often without her will), the characters she meets are doing things like painting roses red or worrying about being late, and there is that common fairy tale trope of beasts and monsters (which often represent latent sexuality or the adult world.)
I used physicality and props to create a sense of weird scale (including pulling out the Queen of Hearts' tampon from offstage), as well as stand up (typically a very straight male genre), and comedy song to queer Alice's fairy tale persona even further.
I scratched a 20 minute piece online with the Junction's artistic group, revised and performed it to 5 minutes in an online cabaret showcase, and then revised it again for a live outdoor performance at the Garrison Church in Woolwich.
As part of my research, I created a Twine game about period stigma, which you can play here.
