Summertime in the Garden of Eden

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)