Elf Lyons bounces on stage. The audience is crammed into the basement-like Gallery Theatre, the front row with a plastic sheet “for protection.” In fact the entire set is covered in plastic, looking like Patrick Bateman’s room from one of the murder scenes from American Psycho. We’ve already been warmed up with a soundtrack including songs such as “Tear You Apart” by She Wants Revenge.
Elf is dressed in a black lace and sequinned leotard with makeup in the style of Pennywise. She makes direct eye contact with a number of audience members. Explaining the show, she narrates her love of Stephen King, the novelist and the fact that she has read over 200 of his novels and short stories. What fascinates us about horror stories, she goes on to explain, is that we get to act out our fantasies without any real harm being done. Who hasn’t wished muderous thoughts on that annoying commuter on the train or that rude saleslady. Tonight, Elf is both our protector and our dominatrix.
Elf is a visual performer, in the sense that minimum props and costumes are necessary for her to transform into various characters. Her mother (with the giant breasts), her annoying sister, a fly, a spider, a terrified child in a darkened convent needing to pee in the middle of the night, all somehow relatable and hilariously performed. We are not watching the performance, we are part of her performance – she never pretends that the audience are distant; they are with her on the whole scary train ride. She keeps us under close scrutiny the whole show.
Stephen King fans would love the references, he has such an influence on mainstream culture that everyone knew who Kathy Bates was (for reference it’s her childhood teddy). Monsters under the bed, children left alone at boarding school over Christmas, having your penis chopped off, all these stories and more were enacted in excruciating and gory detail. Whilst daring anyone in the audience to look away.
We were promised a castration for the finale and this is when the plastic sheeting came in to play. “Oh, yes, you’ll want to cover yourself” she warns the front row of the audience. What follows is an orgy of vegetables and fruits being mashed, chewed, broken and splattered, all to howls of laughter from the shocked spectators. Elf had well and truly taken us from her childhood traumas into their logical denouement. There really are monsters under the bed.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Elf Lyons played her show Raven at the Adelaide Fringe
The reviewer attended the show on 16th March
To see more of her work check out her website
