Teenage punk rocker turned New York cabaret superstar Lady Rizo, aka Amelia Zirin-Brown, used to keep politics an undercurrent, rather than a flood, in her siren song shows. But the end of her 12-year marriage, becoming a mother, and the election of you-know-who has changed all of that.
"The last disaster of America, our 45th and final president," she sighs over the phone, with the unseen eye-roll implicit. "It's impossible not to let it affect your daily mindset. Trump is a sebaceous cyst with a large ego. A small man in no way fit to be a leader."
Bringing Lady Rizo: Red, White and Indigo to the Sydney Festival, is Lady Rizo's unique way of tackling more than just Trump, but also the greater malaise infecting the "very bad boyfriend," that is America right now. Channelling the spirit of Nina Simone and Edith Piaf through original songs and those of Marvin Gaye and Leonard Cohen, cabaret and the immediacy of performance art allow her a powerful voice for change.
"It doesn't have to check in with the board or respond to subscribers or even stop ideas from happening because of the budget, when there is no budget," lady Rizo says. "It breaks down the fourth wall and I can insert things that happen that day, like comedy stand-up or late-night TV shows."
It also prevents her from feeling desperately powerless, with direct action vital in these trying times. "What's most important is that you are not just holed up with the onslaught of news breaking you down, stuck in your hole of an apartment every day. You get to go out and mingle," Lady Rizo says. "It's an especially hard time for women, a very confusing time that feels exciting in a way but also very insulting that a man like this, who is obviously a misogynist, would be granted the highest power in the land. The 'pussy grabber' is the chief."
But while Trump's ascendancy may have emboldened other alt-right kindred spirits, those who oppose his politics have also been propelled into action. The Women's March on Washington was a clarion call of hope, Lady Rizo notes. "A good part of the show is me searching for my own sense of patriotism, and that was a swelling moment, an incredible feeling fomenting this idea that through the organisation and branding of women's-based activism, we can have peaceful demonstrations because women carry around peace as a priority, more than men. It just seems to be that way."
Red, White and Indigo unpacks the idea of blind patriotism. "How can I save something that I have had misgivings about for a while? And I was born of parents that didn't fully identify with being American the way that a lot of Americans do. The main image that I land on is reinvigorating the sense of the true calling card of America; that of being a melting pot."
The show includes a recital of The New Colossus, the 1883 Emma Lazarus poem inscribed on a bronze plaque at the foot of the Statue Of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
It's a timely reminder of mutual responsibility that applies equally to Trump's travel ban and certain island prisons much closer to our shores. "It resonates so strongly, and this is a sentiment I think is valuable for Australia as well. No matter what our background or political affiliations or how liberal we think we are, we all get a little grabby around our land, our space, and I would like, for a moment in the show, for us to release the fear of our thing being taken away."
That idea of welcoming understanding is central to another Sydney Festival highlight, Tribunal. Co-conceived and directed by Karen Therese, artistic director of Western Sydney youth theatre company PYT Fairfield, it's billed as the Australian Truth and Reconciliation Tribunal we never had.
At its heart is a conversation between legendary Indigenous activist and elder Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor and new Australian Mahdi Mohammadi, an Afghanistan-born playwright and performer whose rights-focused work in Kabul saw him targeted with violence, leading to him becoming a refugee.
"Once you know someone's story, it's very, very difficult to judge them," Therese says. "That's what Tribunal does, it starts off with a legalese context, but ultimately it's comparative to having an Arabic tea party. And we open up the conversation to everybody, because ultimately what we get from people is that no one knows what to do. Everybody is caught in this frozen state, which is what the government wants. They've worked really hard to make everyone so confused."
The same applies to the lack of forward momentum on treaty and constitutional recognition for First Nations people, particularly in the wake of the Turnbull Government's rejection of the Uluru Statement. "Basically, when they started talking, Aunty Rhonda and Mahdi, they both realised how much they resonated together in relation to Australia's history of incarceration," Therese says. "Australia is really good at locking people up. They've been doing it since colonisation."
Tribunal does not talk about politicians. Instead it creates a safe space where the audience can listen to "two beautiful people", as well as guest speakers including lawyers and nurses, encouraging festival patrons to examine what it means to be Australian and how they can get involved in activism, whether that be rights for refugees, indigenous folks or any other cause.
"The show doesn't make people feel bad about whatever it is that they haven't done," says Therese, whose research included speaking to people on either side of the Israel/Palestine divide. "It's just helping them with what can we do now?"
Aunty Rhonda, and her commitment to sharing an authentic truth, has been a driving force. "She has done a lot of work on healing trauma and we're all very privileged to have her. But she said 'If I'm going to do this, I'm not going to be an actor'. So everything about Tribunal as much as possible is a people's court, like they had in South Africa with apartheid, as run by Desmond Tutu. I think when everyone sees it, they believe in it. There's no other way to fight this except with kindness and with conversation."
Queer rights activist and drag superstar Panti Bliss - aka Rory O'Neill - also knows a thing or two about winning hearts and minds. Panti was a high-profile face of the successful campaign for marriage equality in Ireland. Unsurprisingly, O'Neill has been watching Australia's tortuous route towards the same goal with keen interest.
He, in Panti guise, spearheads vaudevillian revue show RIOT, an Easter Rising-inspired, sexually charged and pumping beats variety show in the vein of La Clique or La Soiree. Anyone who caught Panti's previous show, High Heels In Low Places, will know that the personal is political for O'Neill. But this is no solemn sermon; his insights into the homophobia and HIV-stigma he has faced in his life are smuggled into the party atmosphere of a cabaret carnival, replete with Irish dancing, contortionist circus acts and powerful spoken word performances.
"There is a place for being very serious and all that and it can be effective, but often if people think they are going to get a lecture then it puts them off," O'Neill explains. "So I am always an entertainer first. I want people to have a good time, but when I have them fully relaxed and they've got all their guards down, then I'll hit them with a more serious message, and I think it's an effective way to talk to people."
Panti's larger than life persona aids O'Neill in that respect. "She's a cartoon or an avatar in a way, and I think that people, even the ones who wouldn't like to admit it, they pay her more attention because she's big and vividly drawn and all of that. And in my case, drag has sort of amplified my voice."
In contrast to Australia's non-binding postal survey, Ireland's Same-Sex Marriage Referendum, which passed with overwhelming national support in 2015, was a somewhat more climactic event, leading to a landmark amendment to the Irish Constitution that protects same-sex marriage rights against future legal or political attacks. But Ireland's marriage equality debate was, like ours, a bruising experience for the gay community. Similar tactics inflaming religious anxieties and child safety concerns were also used there to smear the LGBTQ campaign. However, the validation of the landslide 61.6% Yes vote cannot be taken away from the queer community quite so easily having fought so hard, O'Neill insists.
"In other countries like France or whatever that brought in marriage equality through legislation, it is not a finished conversation," he says. "They still have anti-gay marches about it. In Australia, you are not changing your constitution, but having had the survey, it will not be easily rolled back. So, we have this really concrete feeling, and I didn't expect that to make it any different, but it has in Ireland and it's a finished conversation here. No one talks about it anymore, even the people who were vehemently opposed. It's done. Everybody is through the gate."
