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Curated by Joshua Di Mattina-Beven
Performed by Tessa Walker-Charles, playing Bongi Perez; Bonnie Huang, playing Virgina Farnham; Blake Wilson, playing Russel Fizzelbaum, Spade Cat and Sherrezade; Ruben Newman, playing Alvin Koontz; Joshua Di Mattina-Beven, playing White Cat and Miss Colins; Sydney Jarrett, playing Valerie Solanas; costumes by Bridget Matison; live Score by Society of Cutting Up Men; artworks by Sydney Jarrett and Laura Luciana.
Up Your Ass, or, From the Cradle to the Boat, or, The Big Suck, or, Up from the Slime (1965) is a play by cultural theorist and man-hater Valerie Solanas. Part exhibition, noise act, drag show and theatrical re-enactment, Up Your Ass materially and performatively reconstructs the original text in its unholy glory.
Written before the publishing of SCUM Manifesto (1967), Up Your Ass carries the writhing politic of ‘Cutting Up Men’ – here theatricalised, but no less serious in its commitment to male destruction. We have interpreted ‘Cutting Up’ as a reordering, rearranging, of the contingent parts which make up the gender binary. In this spirit, we have also edited, cut and reinterpreted the original text for both brevity and contemporary relevance.
While originally performed on the streets of New York, our production takes place on Gadigal land, in the suburb of Darlinghurst. A once vibrant downtown district – Darlinghurst and its surrounding area has a rich history of drag and sex work. From New York to Sydney, Solanas’ words shed light on a shared struggle, and the myriad ways degenerates find community and liberation.
Upon the rediscovery of Up Your Ass in 1999, and its musical adaptation in 2000, critics heralded the text as ‘adolescent’, ‘more a provocation than a work of dramatic literature’ and ‘fundamentally flawed’. We are here to embrace the text’s amateurish energy, drawing from clown and drag practices to generate a show brimming with vitality.
We hope you’ll join the cast of Up Your Ass for appetisers, entertainment and a shag down memory lane.
Love,
Joshua Di Mattina-Beven”