Show Stopper, a solo show by queer artist Agent Cleave, takes its name from a song by the remorselessly independent singer/songwriter Peaches. “I got her blessing and her respect to call this Show Stopper,” says performer, gender bender and provocateur, ‘drag assassin’ Agent Cleave. Cleave worked alongside Peaches for six years, opening shows in front of thousands and thousands of fans, including supporting her on a much lauded tour of the Australian music festivals in 2011. “I was having the time of my life,” the beautiful bearded performer otherwise known as Anthony, recalls. “I’d toured with Peaches over the years and done major festivals, and while I was having some time off in Sydney I impulsively got Show Stopper tattooed on my wrist. It’s one of my favourite Peaches singles.”
If you saw the Sisters Grimm’s show Summertime in the Garden of Eden at Theatreworks last year, you’ll know exactly what sort of hilarity Agent Cleave is capable of. For those of you yet to enjoy the experience of seeing him on stage, his Fringe show is a showcase for all that the character has to offer while both deconstructing and lauding sexual identity. “I wanted to extend the character further, do more than the club stuff; it was really high time to make something of myself as an erotic performer, to invest more in Agent Cleave who has been my performance character for six years.”
Show Stopper is essentially a cabaret where Cleave uses other people’s music in order to explore gendered tropes, the tired archetypes of ‘dangerous and effeminate sexuality.’ Cleave talks about how these characters were formed in the early days of cinema, where a dangerous and effeminate sexuality was given to men – films from the time often featured a male ‘ponce’. “In the 1920s, on stage and on film, there was always that mincing, feather-boa’d male who was a stalwart character, this was before the censors came along, and then it all changed, they had to hide those overt images of daring effeminate sexuality in the male.”
It takes a drag performer to really show us what being a girl is about, to challenge our ideas about how we ‘do’ feminine, to remind us that, as women, we unconsciously adopt the models of femininity offered to us. Whether we conform to or wholeheartedly reject ubiquitous feminine personas, to some degree or another, women still orient or perform ourselves in relation to these show business types. “The women’s experience of dangerous sexuality was the vamp, the virgin, the mermaid,” explains Cleave. “My show is a celebration of all that; I’m loath to be judgemental of the drag that we all wear. I want to take everyone’s hand and say let’s not be criminalised or judged.”
Be it the virgin, the vamp, or the mermaid, Cleaves’s characters flounce, swoon and strut against a live musical backdrop (provided by Pete Barry, Jonny Badlove and Kieran John Brooks) informed and inspired by the music of the great women of rock and roll. “And they are all artists I have actually seen perform live,” Cleave adds. “I open with a fluffy effeminate Pirate character, who’s safe, familiar; it’s all innuendo. The audience is invited to objectify me as a performer but they are invited to respect that position also. Then the show moves into a more authentic sexuality with the other characters, something rougher, but more truthful. I reference Madonna in Dick Tracey, Jessica Rabbit…as far as the content goes, I could have written this show when I was eight,” Cleave continues. “I’ve been watching and absorbing a different range of feminine personas all my life; I still do.”
By Liza Dezfouli
