REVIEW: House of Rot by Dino Dimitriadis & Victoria Falconer – Green Door Theatre Company/Malthouse Theatre

The documentary, Grey Gardens, released in 1975, is a fly-on-the-wall portrait of mother and daughter Big Edie and Little Edie, living in squalor in their derelict mansion in East Hampton. Big Edie is the aunt of Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of President Kennedy, and the film – often voted one of the best documentaries of all time – feels like the photo negative version of Kennedy’s mythological Camelot.

The two Edies show filmmaker brothers, Albert and David Maysles, around the titular home, which is falling apart, and the property, which is overgrown. The two women argue about their lives, talk about past glories and sing showtunes. They are an eccentric pair, and the Maysles have been criticised for exploiting them, but it’s a remarkable insight into the extended family of American royalty. Their singular lifestyles and resilience have been marvelled at for decades and it’s no wonder that the queer community have found some fascination in their, let’s say, avant garde lifestyle.

House of Rot takes Grey Gardens as inspiration, but it’s no longer about the false façade of America; here it tackles living inside what feels like the very modern collapse of society. Performer Paul Capsis takes on the matriarchal role and Adam Noviello is the child in fear of turning into their mother.

Capsis is a “grand dame” of Australian stage now, while Noviello is already making a name for themselves, absolutely killing it as Yitzhak in a recent production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Where that show centred the righteous anger of the queer community, House of Rot plays more as a form of quiet resistance, making the most out of the tools you have.

The stage is mostly bare, except for a row of chairs along the front, a scrim, and a smoke machine working overtime, creating the most mesmerising curlicues – lit dramatically by lighting designer, Brockman. Co-creator and music director, Victoria Falconer, opens the show – alone at her piano – with a rendition of Windmills of My Mind. This haunting version puts us squarely in the mood for a deep dive into the central mother and daughter figures.

We get allusions to other mother and daughter relationships, including Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland, along with observations on ageing, sexuality and faded beauty. Capsis’ rendition of This Bitter Earth is shattering, but we’re pieced back together by Noviello’s I Touch Myself, sung naked while at the piano. The two characters echo and reflect each other, through Noviello’s take on The Velvet Underground’s I’ll Be Your Mirror or in their duet of Lana Del Rey’s Young & Beautiful.

Co-Creator and director, Dino Dimitriadis, has a clear vision for this piece which plays like watching a sketch of two characters coming to life in a monochrome world. It’s a touching display of multi-generational queer resilience, as the world falls apart around them. Scattered through the show, very delicately, are news clips; hearing Pauline Hanson’s voice in the middle of all this beauty was startling - upsetting - given her appearance at the National Press Club this week. But this is what we are fighting; fascism in all its forms.

House of Rot is deliberately designed to be delicate and robust. These two brittle characters can stand tall, and with their gorgeous voices, sing out against the crumbling world. It’s bracing and moving and resonates deeply in our troubled times.

It’s a shame the season is so short, but – to paraphrase Little Edie in Grey Gardens – I’m glad that someone, this cohort, is doing what they wanted to do.

- Keith Gow, Theatre First

House of Rot is playing two shows at the Malthouse tomorrow – 2pm and 7:30pm. Then it moves to the Hayes Theatre in Sydney for a one week run from June 23 to 28.

 Photos: Gianna Rizzo