Even so, it’s the perfect setting for She Stole My Every Rock and Roll, a poetic love story which starts amongst the vinyl.
Local poets Eleanor Jackson (originally from Melbourne) and Betsy Turcot (who hails from the USA) have crafted a superb tale of love, longing and loss. Performed last year as A Mills and Boon Swoon at the Queensland Poetry Festival, Melbourne’s Overload Poetry Festival, Canberra’s Global Poetics Tour and the Woodford Folk Festival, this 40 minute show has been honed to perfection for its Anywhere Theatre Festival season.
The two women have distinct, individual styles in their words and delivery. Their easy characterisation demonstrates that even in same-sex relationships, opposites attract.
Betsy and Eleanor are easy to listen to, with rich smooth voices that draw you into the domestic drama. Much like the famous Elizabethan playwrights, these two poets tell a moving story using rhythm and rhyme, delivered in a natural style.
The text is part conversation, part internal monologue, bound together with a tempestuous undercurrent of emotion. While they haven’t pressed a record, zines of the show are available to help unravel those intriguing moments of overlapping text.
She Stole My Every Rock and Roll is a pleasure to watch, even at its most heartbreaking.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
She Stole My Every Rock and Roll
Written and performed by Betsy Turcot and Eleanor Jackson
Jet Black Cat Music, West End
May 10 – 12 and 17 – 19
Anywhere Theatre Festival
May 10 – 19
