OBSERVER: Sugar
A Midsumma Festival and Arts Centre presentation, the one-person cabaret-style show Sugar was a wonderful celebration of all things LGBTQIA+ due mainly to the scintillating performance of Tomas Kantor.
The play is the story of a sugar baby, a younger person seeking a transactional relationship with a sugar daddy, an older wealthier individual. While starting off well, things unfortunately go awry as both parties find they have different conflicting expectations.
The show was written by Ro Bright and used a great variety of theatrical techniques including song, audience interaction and direct addresses to the audience.
Quite demanding of a performer, the show also required the one actor, in this case Kantor, to play three key roles; those of the sugar baby, the sugar daddy and, last but not least, themselves as a commentator on the action.
Fortunately the show found a perfect fit in Kantor who, in an acting tour de force, carried the night. They are a wonderful very talented performer whose cheeky and charming stage persona was critical to the show’s success.
They perform the three roles with passion and vitality. They also successfully pulled off the delineation of and switching between roles, making it look disarmingly simple.
This would not have been possible without the excellent direction of Kitan Petkovski. Keeping the pace of the show fast and upbeat, Petkovski nevertheless also found opportunities for moments of quiet reflection on the drama unfolding as the sugar baby and daddy go their separate ways.
Sensibly, Petkovski gives Kantor room to shine and strikes a good balance between song and theatre; in this they were more than ably assisted by musical director and arranger Rachel Lewindon.
The characterisations did sometimes border on cliche and the commentary fell into an earnest didacticism. Regardless, it never failed to engage its audience.
A marvellous show with a marvellous performer, Sugar was an outstanding contribution to this year’s Midsumma Festival.
Review by Peter Murphy
Pictured: Tomas Kantor in Sugar.
Photo: Mark Gambino.