Marney McQueen
The Banquet Room 17 and 18 Jun
More comedy than cabaret, Marney McQueen’s Rosa Waxes Lyrical introduces us to Rosa, a Russian beautician whose “pruning” skills are in high demand. McQueen waxes, but more frequently wanes her way through tales of love and betrayal from Rosa’s years maintaining the hirsute nether regions of Australia’s local and international elite.
The theme of this show has comedic potential, but its execution is loose at best. Despite displaying considerable vocal talent, McQueen’s performance could be summed up as a wavering Russian accent, two parody songs and a few nuggets of gold in funny moments of audience interaction.
Rosa is joined on stage by Boris Longschlongadonski (Mark Jones), her devoted piano-playing support act. Jones completely steals the show as Boris, eliciting the greatest laughs with a deadpan performance of one liners and "knock knock" jokes. Despite their success, however, his interludes felt thrown in and it wasn’t obvious how they were meant to fit into the rest of the show.
While evoking sufficient laughter to classify the show a crowd-pleaser, ROSA Waxes Lyrical was largely hit and miss and lacked a consistent theme or logical flow. McQueen’s strength clearly lies in her voice and overall it seemed a shame that she choose to perform an hour of passable comedy rather than make more of that impressive talent.
Nicole Russo
