The play begins with Simon Burke’s bare arse, facing the audience and bouncing side to side in time with David Bowie’s The Jean Genie. In this new production of a queer Australian classic, the actor is playing 56-year-old elocution teacher Robert O’Brien in stockings and suspenders, rouge on his face, caressing himself before a poster of Mick Jagger.
While teaching, O’Brien wears a fusty green vest and brown suit and tie that blend with his living room furnishings; in private, cigarette in hand, he resembles Norma Desmond in cloth cap and dressing gown. Soon, he will search for his sanity as the state insinuates he’s a child abuser without granting him a trial, attacking his sexuality and gender expression.
