Matthew Westwood
Cabaret artist Reuben Kaye has made a name as much for fabulous cross-dressing as for out-there genre-bending, so it seems only polite to begin a conversation by asking about preferred pronouns.
“Talented,” he deadpans.
Just like Oscar Wilde it seems, he has nothing else to declare.
“I think I should probably change my pronouns,” he continues, “but I can’t even cope with remembering a new password at this point.
“As queer people, we are defined by others so often that I don’t even worry about definitions – I just keep on doing what I’m doing.”
Kaye seems to be everywhere at the moment, with his high-camp renditions of popular songs and a comedy act that frequently turns the air blue.
Having worked the comedy and cabaret circuit and toured with the recent production of Jesus Christ Superstar as a scene-stealing Herod, Kaye is about to land at the Sydney Festival with his show Engorged.
The larger-than-life show has Kaye fronting an 18-piece orchestra at the Sydney Opera House, with numbers such as Amanda Lear’s I Am a Photograph and Aerosmith’s Dude (Looks Like a Lady).
Kaye debuted the show with long-time collaborator Shanon Whitelock at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, where he takes the reins as artistic director in June.
He insists cabaret is transgressive in both form and content, and comes in many more flavours than the kind of earnest song recital he has somewhat derisively called “Sondheim on a stool”.
“Cabaret is like a jackdaw, magpie collection of theatrical conventions – that’s why it’s transgressive first off, because it breaks all the rules,” he says.
“And it’s transgressive because it is inherently a political art form, reframing the world through this tilted, queer lens that takes power away from those who have too much, and recentres marginalised voices – that’s why it’s part of the demimonde, the underworld.”
Other musical forms borrow from cabaret when they want edginess or a change of pace – such as the convention of an actor breaking out of character to address the audience.
“Suddenly, every musical now has direct address, breaking the fourth wall, or an Act II opening cabaret number – Disney does it all the time,” Kaye says. “If it’s not the cabaret aesthetic, then it’s the form of cabaret – because cabaret has no rules.”
No one would accuse Kaye of sticking to the rule book. A joke he told on Channel 10’s The Project in 2023 led to a deluge of complaints. Kaye is unrepentant: “When you are pissing the right people off, you know you’re doing good work,” he says.
Running through January, the Sydney Festival has taken a cabaret turn this year. The first program from new artistic director Kris Nelson features New York’s Salty Brine in Bigmouth Strikes Again (described as a mash-up of The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead album and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), Ursula Yovich singing songs of Nina Simone, Natalie Abbott making her cabaret debut in Bad Hand, and Ben Graetz with his alter-ego, Bogan Villea.
Kaye certainly has earned his cabaret stripes. He grew up in Melbourne in a creative family, although he says his mother tried to steer him away from a career in the arts.
“There was never any question that I was going to be an artist – despite the fact that they tried to discourage me,” he recalls. “I remember my mum saying, ‘Please be a plumber, an accountant or a funeral director – you’ll never run out of business’.”
After studying at the Victorian College of the Arts and finding no work in Australia, Kaye moved to London where got his first break.
A part in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, and in a European tour of Evita, led him into London’s cabaret scene as a performer and artistic director, including at the storied Cafe de Paris in the West End.
“It’s an iconic cabaret venue and I had a residency there for five years,” he says. “What I loved about London was walking into venues that had legacy and history that really stretched back into my specific art form.”
Now, armed with butterfly-wing eyelashes and killer heels, Kaye has made cabaret in his own image with his new show, Engorged.
“There are parts of it that are more intimate, oddly enough, than any other show I’ve done because it’s more about the music, and it’s really a chance for me to sing and chat to the audience,” he says.
“I think there’s a slightly different side of Reuben Kaye that is showcased in this – as well as the bombastic, filthy, shocking and politically active.”
Nothing could be further from Sondheim on a stool.
Engorged, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, January 16.
