Gareth K Vile visits Club Gateways and listens to Songs of Joyce.
Very often, the most interesting performance appears in the margins: my fond hopes for the burlesque revival came from a sincere belief that anything that wandered away from the mainstream had a fair chance of uncovering some new theatrical strategies. Certainly, The Creative Martyrs have emerged from the cabaret scene as an uncompromising fusion of vaudeville, absurdism and Eastern European sinister clowning: the burlesque establishment appears to be holding fire at the moment, but the appearance of Club Gateways at The Winchester Club last week hints that theatre, at least, is still interested in a neo-burlesque aesthetic.
Club Gateways is the latest production from Confab, a group dedicated to new writing. While they only presented the first two acts of this 1950s musical thriller – the third, which looks as if it will involve an old school gangster punch up and the resolution of a classic “across the tracks” romance, is being saved for later staging. Writer and director Rachel Jury, sometime performance poet and producer, has gone back to tales of the Chelsea underground, setting the drama in a famous club that was a rare haven for lesbians, yet came under threat from the encroachment of a new wave of opportunistic thugs.
Jury’s script is light and fast: scenes race past, giving just enough personality to the characters without weighing down the songs with heavy plot. The score, from Andrew Cruikshank, dabbles in raw blues, cool jazz and shades of rock’n’roll: the impact of the first two acts is similar to a cabaret with a running narrative.
Despite the intense themes – forbidden love, gang-land violence, the re-assertion of gender determinism after the Second World War - Jury keeps the emphasis on the songs. A sparky piss-take of “Modern Wives”, lyrics culled from contemporary women’s magazines, nestles alongside more heart-rending meditations on love, despair and alternative relationships.
Club Gateways is an incomplete work: Confab’s slow unveiling of the project hopes to bring in support, and the Friday and Saturday night performances were accompanied by a rock’n’roll disco and cabaret evening respectively. As much for the self-sufficient attitude – as Jury comments, “polish and integrity” – Club Gateways is an exciting project that makes the effort to balance cabaret and musical theatre in a way many clubs claim to do, but don’t.
Oddly enough, last week’s Play, Pie and Pint lunchtime special also had more in common with variety and musicals than Shakespeare. A last minute change in programme saw the Shannon Colleens sing “The Songs of Joyce”. Although it was, disappointingly, not a tribute to The Scotsman’s critic but a selection of tunes related to the Irish author. Fortunately, Joyce’s musical tastes were less austere and experimental than his prose style: there were love songs, operatic parodies, cheeky numbers about checking out chicks on the beach and a sentimental sing-along at the end.
It made a charming change from PPP’s usual fare – no sidelong attempts to define Scottish identity or history here – and dug out a slice of vaudeville history that didn’t get a shot during the neo-cabaret revival of the last decade. There’s a lively irony in the duo’s delivery that doesn’t patronise either the songs or the audience, but updates them enough to be accessible.
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