Introducing Aunty Jude – REVIEW
Image: Alison Bennett in Introducing Aunty Jude at Sydney Fringe. Image: Facebook:Hurrah Hurrah
The stage is bare but for a cello leaning against a chair, and a metal shelf holding two small piñatas, long sticks, a hand fan, and a long, coiled white rope. Mary Rapp, a cellist, walks in a begins playing a very sombre and repetitive piece of music. After enough time passes to make you question what’s going on, a figure emerges from side stage.
The figure is impressive, smocked in a bedazzling red sequinned kaftan, scrunchy large gold bow headpiece, and bedroom slippers.
This is Aunty Jude. She immediately instructs the cellist to change it up to something a bit more spritely and the fun begins.
Alison Bennett is Aunty Jude, a lady with suburban aesthetic but an affluent inflexion in her voice. Her comedy is delivered via very subtle physical gestures, facial expressions, and the way she says things.
The show is interactive, she teaches the audience how to shoulder dance, she gets some volunteers to whack a piñata and distribute the goodies (not what you might expect). She encircles the audience with her warmth and affection and the very long white rope.
Bennett has an easy rapport with the audience that makes evincing laughter relatively easy, although it does feel like she runs out of ideas towards the end when she and the show start to disintegrate.
The laughs were still coming from the audience, so that’s your best recommendation.
