Festival

I must admit, walking into this theatre piece at the lovely Jack and Jill’s Basement, I was cringingly expecting some burlesque/cabaret/kink crossover. I went in with low expectations and left shocked and elated at how brilliant and thought-provoking Jennifer Vuletic presented this show.

At first, as Jennifer showed us some simple rope tricks and talked about the illusory nature of magic, I was sure I was with an accomplished performer, but I was still hesitant about the content I would see. Not that I’m a prude at all – in fact, I love to see real, actual experiences of sex on stage. It’s more that the Fringe is littered with much of the same content; the lure of tasselled boobs and whooping crowds. So, at first, the ropes made me think, well, here we are again. But – we certainly were not.

Soon, we met Ali, an older, suburban, lesbian mum who was married and had two boys. She unleashes a torrent of words describing her life and situation, the somewhat drab and entrenched existence she finds herself in—she’s not discontented; life is fine, but it’s just a little…dull. It’s missing something.

The writing is very fast-paced, and it took me about five minutes to hook in and really listen. It was a little hard to keep track of the narrative initially, but once Jennifer started to talk about being interrogated regarding how her wife got pregnant, I was reeled in.

The shock of the first scene featuring the Mistress is wonderful and exciting. Jennifer is inherently believable throughout and clearly a deeply accomplished actor. Her body and voice are working in incredible sync, and she can use the tonality of her instrument to shift characters effortlessly. This is not a one-woman show where she plays or inhabits multiple characters; however, she sometimes imitates the people who are speaking to her – with brilliant effect. A highlight was Sandra, in the staff room, telling Ali about FetLife and opening her up to a whole world of possibility – icky, scary and pulse-pounding.

Books are celebrated, and the literary nature of the text is balanced—sometimes, the prose is elegiac and complicated, and at others, it is simple, erotic, and funny. There were plenty of sly jokes and funny turns of phrase throughout, all delivered with aplomb and pace by Jennifer.

It is, in turn, a piece about the dream of eroticism and the reality of stepping into another world where your boundaries are pushed. It’s a love letter to kink, growing older, lesbianism and literature. It’s an inspirational work that encourages us all to take the risks we were always scared of, to pursue that dream you kept hidden. In this case, her dream is to experience spanking and bondage by a mistress finally, and much of the humour lies in that.

Tawdry as it might sound, how the material is handled means that we can imbue any dream into it. Whilst it is a play about kink and the character’s idiosyncratic and personal experience, it’s also a play about all of us and how we could all take a risk.

This is the sort of play I want to see on the main stage at State Theatre. It has so many powerful and important messages. Sex work is real work. People have desires, needs, and wants even when they are growing older. Sex work is self-care. There is magic in the minute. As the character says, this play beautifully explores “the everything of something ineffable.”

The Milf and the Mistress is a five-star theatre show that should be experienced by as many as possible. Jennifer is an uncommonly good performer, and the play shows us a world that might be unfamiliar, even scary but is, in fact, the world we all live in. The Milf and the Mistress is at Jack and Jill’s Basement on Pirie St, til Sunday, 10th March.

This review also appears on It’s On The House, and check out more reviews at Dark Stories Theatre to see what else is on in your town.

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