Hot Brown Honey

It could be argued that theatre falls into two categories: the didactic and the accessible. One gets the neurones firing and provides enlightenment while the other offers the entertaining escapism of pop culture and glitzy spectacles. But why can't we be educated while still having a bloody good time? As the fierce ladies of Hot Brown Honey prove, there's no reason why learning a thing or two about injustice and laughing till your face hurts should be mutually exclusive.

With its loud and proud mix of hip hop, beatboxing, burlesque, naughty comedy and inflatable prosthetics (I won't ruin the surprise) this revue style cabaret is wickedly fun, but it simultaneously shines a light on one of the most enduring issues of our post-colonial society: the unresolved decimation of First Nation cultures.

Here in Australia, the impact of European settlement on Aboriginal communities is still glaringly obvious on our city streets, but the Indigenous peoples of this country are not the only culture to be devastated by colonisation. The performers of Hot Brown Honey represent Pacific Islander, Samoan, Tongan, South African and Australian First Nations, but for these women there is an additional layer of complexity to the question of Indigenous reconciliation.

Women of colour must contend with both the discrimination of their race and their gender and in some respects, one of the most damaging impacts of white settlement was on female identity within the Indigenous psyche. Wherever it came from - be it the Christian missionaries who forced women to be ashamed of their bodies, the settlers who used First Nation women as exotic sexual trophies, or the authorities who stole children from loving and devoted mothers - the anger and sorrow and rage of those cruelties remain as potent today as they were a century ago. Justifiably so.

This hardly sounds like a laughing matter, but ironically it's the honesty of this show that makes its comedy so alert. Hot Brown Honey doesn't attempt to wrap the bitter pill of these truths in satirical sugar; it wears its outrage on its sleeve. This unapologetic rebellion, "fighting the power" with a gloriously fuck-you spirit, is built on a foundation of integrity, authenticity, agency and intelligence. There's nothing remotely glib about it, and yet this sophisticated social commentary communicates in a vernacular that is so immediately accessible that anyone, from any culture, will be able to engage and understand its meaning.

Co-creators Lisa Fa'alafi and Kim "Busty Beatz" Bowers, alongside their fellow Honeys, have created an uproariously good time, full of biting gags and filthy phat bass lines. It's easy to see why this show has received such incandescent praise since it premiered earlier this year in Adelaide, but that isn't to say that Hot Brown Honey shirks its responsibility to reveal the bleak realities experienced by women of colour. It shows that nationality and culture are not the same, personal sexual empowerment does not equate to moral depravity or exploitation, and refusing to submit to male oppression does not justify abuse. The counterpoint between these stark and profoundly affecting moments and the OTT sass of the rest of the show, speaks powerfully about the duality of contemporary Indigenous life, that must at once acknowledge a brutalised past while building a defiant future.

Arts Centre Melbourne presents Hot Brown Honey to 11 Dec.