I had high hopes for Whore. Described in the pro­mo mate­r­i­al as “Con­tem­po­rary, top­i­cal, true-life based mono­logues told by six characters…this work is a col­lec­tion of sto­ries about street sex work­ers in Auck­land, New Zealand” I thought it would be an up to date explo­ration of mod­ern, decrim­i­nalised sex work. Well, I was dis­ap­point­ed. If you played a drink­ing game where you took a sip at every cliché about sex work­ers, at every offen­sive com­ment about men, women, gay and queer peo­ple, then you could be smashed in 15 min­utes. But then you’d have to sit through anoth­er 60 or so min­utes before it ends, so don’t do that. *

Instead, you should go to Lash­ings of Whipped Cream which is play­ing at the same the­atre after Whore. This is a 19 year old script by Fiona Samuel that treats sex work­ers and their clients with respect and empa­thy. It’s per­formed by Rhubarb Rouge, the alter­nate per­sona of Ricky Beirao. Although the play was writ­ten as a mono­logue for a woman, it works very well with a drag diva in the hot pants. Er, hot seat.

Mis­tress Dominique is quite sur­prised to find us in her dun­geon and in such a large num­ber. She says that she won’t have time to deal with us all so per­haps she should just talk us through her ser­vices.  There’s a lit­tle bit of squirm­ing in the seats from the audi­ence as she describes the cost and ser­vice she pro­vides. There is equip­ment all over the stage which pro­vides an excel­lent visu­al aid for each ser­vice. She’s also between clients so takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to refu­el her­self — after all, dom­i­na­tion is very hard work.

Ms Rouge wears a fan­tas­tic cos­tume from Mar­quis de Sade in Mel­bourne. The audi­ence gets to have a good look at it as she tot­ters up and down the steps at BATS talk­ing to us. There is some audi­ence inter­ac­tion with some saucy ques­tions. Ms Rouge is gen­tle (mostly…okay, sort of) with the peo­ple she inter­acts with.

Good direc­tion from Geoff Pin­field and a ground­ed per­for­mance from Beirao mean that the show is fun­ny, sassy, and worth your mon­ey.

 

*Yes, I’m exag­ger­at­ing for com­ic effect. It might take 40 min­utes.