'CLUB NITE' / Miscellania, June 21-24
We get some insight into the creation, curation and comedic vision behind new-age theatre show CLUB NITE before their run at Miscellania (June 21st - 24th)
Kicking off tonight and running until Friday the 24th of June, CLUB NITE is Naarm’s hilarious new satirical play, bringing multimedia and other non-traditional dramatical elements into the theatre space.
Described by its creators and cast members as a “live meme”, CLUB NITE is equal parts self-reflexive and mocking, poking fun at Zoomer lifestyles and social-woke politics in Naarm. Inspired in its entirety by the spaces and situations the creators have found themselves in as young people in this city, CLUB NITE hopes to make its audience feel seen and embarrassed, but also loved - knowing that we have all sometimes done the wrong thing, said the wrong thing.
“Whenever I make fun of myself - they’re the most popular” Anjelica Angwin who plays Ana says on the meme page. She found that people particularly loved laughing at how ridiculous all the unofficial social rules are - particularly when it came to gate-kept spaces such as clubbing, music and fashion:
“That became a big part of the critique we were making - because it does not come from a place that’s above, we are also guilty of it and therefore let’s have a laugh at how silly we can be”.
Beyond making fun of themselves; CLUB NITE also has a more serious interest at heart - making theatre more accessible by inviting a new audience who wouldn’t usually find themselves watching theatre shows.
After a series of cancellations, the cast and team toyed with using different spaces for the show. They wanted to make it site-specific, and played with the idea of having it in one of their houses with one scene in the living room, the next in the garage, and so on. Though as Misc started popping off as a venue not just bolstering electronic events, it soon became the perfect setting.
“Having it [the play] at a club that so many young people we know are used to and feel comfortable in rather than a traditional theatre space was very important... Another way of saying this isn’t a normal show for boomers, this is a show for you” - Lotte Beckett (Gemma)
All playing caricatures of themselves - get ready to laugh, cry and dance to Ana (Anjelica Angwin), Serene (Matisse Laida), and Gemma (Lotte Beckett). “My character is a deranged stoner influence” Matisse explains, “Anjel’s character is every Naarm bitch you’ve ever met… And Lotte is just sweet, sweet, straight theatre gal who loves Harry Styles and Smith St. And is there anything wrong with that?”
She continues to say what we’ve all been thinking - “it’s not regular theatre, it’s cool theatre”. So get tickets to the one-of-a-kind show starting tonight at Miscellania.
Tickets to CLUB NITE, June 21-24th at Miscellania
Thank you for reading this article. Before you leave the page, we’d like you to take a moment to read this statement. We are asking our readers to take action and stand with the BIPOC community who fight and endure the oppression and injustice of racial inequality.
Here in ‘Australia’, Indigenous people are the most incarcerated population on Earth. Countless lives have been murdered by white police, white government policies and this country’s white history, institutionalised colonialism and ongoing racial oppression. Racial injustice continues today under the phoney, self-congratulatory politics of ‘Reconciliation’ and the notion that colonialism is something that must be denied and forgotten, an uncomfortable artefact of the past.
Feeling guilty is not enough. We must take action, pay the rent, educate ourselves and acknowledge that empathy and sorrow for past actions is insufficient if this does nothing to prevent our current reality from extending into the future.
Please consider making donations to the following organisations (the list is so small and the work to be done is so large, do your research to find more grassroots, Indigenous-lead community organisations):
Indigenous Social Justice Association - fighting to stop Indigenous deaths in custody
Firesticks Alliance - who campaign for Indigenous land management, cultural burning and looking after Country