Blackouts: Twilight of the Idols

Drag fabulist Dickie Beau shapeshifts through a shadowy soundscape of lost souls in a theatrical trip to the subconscious underworld of his future self. Bringing to life extraordinary audio artefacts Dickie leads us on a bewitching adventure in found sound as he channels the ghosts of his childhood idols.

Uniquely, this innovative theatre show includes audio that has never before been heard in the public domain from Marilyn Monroe’s final interview before she died, the tapes of which Dickie was given exclusive access to, as well as material creatively appropriated from Dickie’s own recordings with Richard Meryman, the man who conducted Marilyn’s last interview.

The project marks a significant development for Dickie’s trademark shtick of dissecting, then “re-membering” (literally, putting back together and embodying), found sound. The “digital script” has been written entirely using audio artefacts and the performance incorporates much original source material, which also includes the spellbinding “Judy Speaks” tapes, of Judy Garland alone in a room with a dictaphone, ostensibly making notes for a memoir that was never written.

The resulting show is partly a study of icons in exile - not only from society, but also from themselves; yet it is also a show that reflects on the impressions they leave behind. At the same time, it is a portrait of the artist as a very old man.