Halloween has its origins in the festival of Samhain (pron. Sow – wane) celebrated by the Celts of ancient Britain and Ireland, at least 2000 years ago. November 1st was, in that era, in the northern hemisphere, considered the first day of the New Year and marked the onset of winter. It was the time of year when animals were brought in from pasture, crops were harvested and land tenures were renewed. During the Samhain festival it was believed that the boundary between the living and dead became blurred and the souls of the dead returned to visit their former homes. Fires were lit to frighten away evil spirits, and people sometimes donned disguises, usually draping themselves in animal skins, to avoid being recognised by ghosts. When the Romans conquered the Celts in the 1st century CE, their festivities of Feralia, venerating dead ancestors, and of Pomona, the goddess of the harvest, were merged with Samhain. Later still in the 6th century AD, Pope Gregory I harnessed the supernatural aspects of these pagan celebrations and superimposed them with Christian rites designating November 1st All saints Day and thereby making 31st October All Hallows Day Evening, the night before saints were to be venerated. That name eventually morphed into ‘Halloween’. Dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils became part of Halloween from around AD 1000. (Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica & https://www.history.com/).
Promotional poster for the show featuring Jai Normes
Performing in drag for Halloween became part of Wagga Wagga culture in AD 2022 when local café/arts hub The Curious Rabbit hosted the first Hallow’d Queens event on 22nd October that year. By 2023 it had become a firm tradition and Hallow'd Queens expanded to the Riverina Playhouse on the banks of the Murrumbidgee, the show emceed with subtle menace by local drag king Crash O’Byrn. The theme was spooky B&B accommodation with Crash as concierge inviting us to tour the nooks and crannies of an imaginary gothic building. As we did so we encountered various drag performers enacting spooky scenarios. There was a shrill Janet chanelling Shelley Duval from The Shining and escaping her psychopathic pursuer to the tune of ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’, her hapless dummy child flailing about in her arms. There was Erica d’Hesperus, sporting a serpentine dress of her own design referencing Disney’s Ursula performing ‘I’ll Put a Spell on You’ . There was an ’aesthetician’ (aka mad scientist), Jai Normés, mixing chemicals to the strains of ‘Weird Science’ then injecting his hapless victim with luminescent gayness formula to Dorian Electra‘s ‘My Agenda’. Imina Something introduced us to a salacious un-holy nun with a craving to paint an audience member's portrait and enacted a knife wielding Chucky to ‘Devil Gate Drive’.
Jeffree
delighted as always with the sheer vulgarity and machismo of his performance to
‘Psychokiller’ offering us a pleasing
outline of his modest genitalia and enjoying a literal bloodbath. Strewth performed both a histrionic version
of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ with her
puppet sidekick Crikey and Kylie Minogue’s ‘I
Believe In You’ with reworked Halloween-style lyrics and some disturbing
audience interaction. Other highlights
were Nefertiti’s blood-red lit writhing erotic
routine to ‘Year Zero’ summoning Baphomet and Jeffree’s showcasing his
feminine side to ‘Wuthering Heights’ delivered with more hysteria than even Ms
Kate Bush could muster.
The show’s finale
was an homage to Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Stuck
In The Middle With You’ Reservoir Dogs torture scene charitably not
approaching cinematic realism but still a wonderfully tasteless rendering of
sadism and cannibalism.
The Playhouse’s
dimensions and equipment gave the troupe greater scope for staging and lighting
than they had last year and they took full advantage with some wonderfully
atmospheric effects including a smoke machine and strobe lighting. The
technical set up for each sequence was a bit sluggish but the audience of
mainly hardcore fans and supporters didn’t seem to mind. Their attire made it
clear they had whole heartedly embraced the evening’s themes with costumes that
included drag chic of all types, an evil pixie and a Goth nursing mother!
The
Hallow’d Queens promise to make this an annual event and it will be exciting to
see what their combined creativity spawns in October 2024. In the meantime we
have the Wollundry Drag Pageant to look forward to in March.
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