THE RISE AND FALL OF SAINT GEORGE
★★★★
The Headland, Barangaroo Reserve, January 15
For many of us in Sydney’s inner-west, Saint George was our patron. A tribute to the late George Michael, this benevolent two-storey mural by Scotty Marsh lived on the Erskineville home of local artist-icons Paul Mac and Jonny Seymour. Saint George – irreverent under a rainbow-hued halo – was a remembrance, a blessing, a beacon.
The Rise and Fall of Saint George at Sydney Festival. Credit:Bianca De Marchi
But, as told in The Rise and Fall of Saint George, a live music event with light theatricality and an open heart, “At the eleventh hour they came for George.” The night marriage equality passed, angry Christian believers destroyed the mural. It was a new heaviness – a reminder that only 61% of the public had voted yes.
Directed by Kate Champion on the headland at Barangaroo Reserve, where queer voices become the proud siren song of the city, the strongest force imaginable is resilient queer love. It weaves through the opening number and expands outwards: there’s a song for the mural – how he winked at us from the train and held us in his gaze – and one for two women whose love led them across the inner west to a mural-backed proposal. There are songs of the dissenters too, but they don’t own this story.
Mac addresses us directly several times in the piece, our storyteller putting songs in context. His electronic, operatic-tinged pop (and Lachlan Philpott’s lyrics) serve as an embrace and an echo: they envelop us in the recent past, pulling samples from clashes at the mural and from political talking heads. These grabs build the anxious, dread-filled background noise that lived in countless queer minds during the postal vote era – and then find hope in the dark.
These feelings are brought to gorgeously vivid life by Andrew Bukenya, Jacqui Dark, HANDSOME, Joyride, Brendan Maclean, Ngaiire, and Marcus Whale, backed by the Inner West Voices, with choristers from Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
It’s not uncommon for a sound mix at a large outdoor venue to lose clarity, which sometimes happens here – but it’s a minor upset; this a show that encourages you to pay attention to the feeling as much as, if not more than, the detail. This is queer communion through music, and it offers an experience of catharsis: exhalation and exhilaration shared to a beat. As for Saint George? He has arisen – on that same wall, he now rides a unicorn, sending down rays of rainbow light.
