“The two talented blondes are perfect complements to each other and make true connections with their audience even in their theatre-stye seating.“
Julia Newbould
3 peroxide bottles
Flight Path Theatre
Feb 28th – March 2nd
Sarah Greenwood and Martelle Hammer are bottle blondes (not a spoiler – as they say themselves, like you couldn’t tell!) and they are stars of this cabaret.
They come together in skit after skit for an hour of cabaret, humour, and music accompanied by the deadpan Scottish musical man Neil Mclean. The three of them move seamlessly together and the show is well-paced and the laughs well earned. All have impeccable comedic timing.
However, trying to make sense of it all, as with many cabarets, is not possible or even desirable. It’s just a matter of following for a few laughs, and disappearing with the team into their absurdist scenarios.
There were some very funny skits. My favourite was where blonde Sarah, is standing, with a cardboard cutout of a naked torso, behind an alfoil-covered cardboard cutout of a bathtub ready to be killed by blonde Martelle and put into a pie. At first she is glad that finally she will be useful to others (estimating she will feed a family of four for a week). She later decides she wouldn’t like to die and be in a pie, which sets the two blondes into a fun duet on what kind of pies would we (the audience) be, and then what kind of pies would they be.
Cardboard features in several scenes as the necessary improvisations of their theatre building creativity. There is Mrs Peabody – on trial for so many “bad” behaviours. She is fined $3.70 and sent to jail. She appears in all her cardboard glory in a courtroom scene with the two blondes playing prosecutor and defence.
Sarah and Martelle have a combined confidence and talent that is perfectly showcased in the silliness of this production even leads to some corpsing at the absurdity.
Food is a theme that carries through the skits – and the introduction to the cabaret has the two blondes appear in the pink corsets and dinner suits they wear throughout the performance with one as a waiter and the other ordering dinner. Martelle asks Sarah what she would like to order – Sarah requests something that is not saucy, not parmigiana as that is saucy. She opts for schnitzel although she says she is tempted by lasagne. The decision is hard and the twist comes when Martelle tells her that that this is the most important decision of her life and everything else will change and pivot around this choice.
It’s clever.
There is also a scene around coffee – how it can make your life change so much in a positive way and then become such a negative influence.
The two talented blondes are perfect complements to each other and make true connections with their audience even in their theatre-stye seating.
I look forward to seeing more of these talented comediennes and talented artists in the future.
Julia Newbould, Theatre Now
