David impersonates Judy Garland making
her entrance at Carnegie Hall -
Star Struck at the Crowne Plaza, Dubai.
Star Struck, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dubai
Review by Gautam Raja,
Gulf News 16-2-04
Last Thursday, Judy Garland pulled my leg. Really - she grabbed me by the calf and tugged, begging me not to leave her alone. When the organiser of the show Star Struck requested that a 'Western journalist' cover the event due to its content, he did an injustice. Not just the obvious injustice to the awareness of non-Western peoples, but an injustice to the very show he was promoting.
How many cultures wouldn't remember teenaged yearning to be a favourite movie or singing star? How many non-Western children have not had childhood worlds shattered - the death of Santa Claus or the realisation humans can't fly at will? The one-man show by David Benson transcended trivia, its story was as all good stories are - universal.
The nature of Star Struck was ambiguous in the promotion material - was it stand-up comedy? A play? Even post-curtain these were hard questions - "a bit of both" would do injustice again to the sweep of this unusual, superb piece.
David Benson has made a business imitating "dead camp comedians". In his words, he created a persona for himself the way Dr. Frankenstein did - with bits of deceased people. And, as with Frankenstein's creation, Benson's character started to get an alarming mind of its own.
Star Struck began harmlessly enough; a funnyman act with much audience involvement and laughter, based on his childhood love of stars such as Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra. After the interval, the froth faded and the audience was dunked into a fairytale gone disturbingly wrong. Quentin Crisp, "the good fairy", grants Benson his lifelong wish to meet all his heroes at a party. It was then Benson made the phrase 'one man show' seem an outright lie, so deft and without artifice was his character switching. Noel Coward, Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Fred Astaire, Groucho Marx - they were all convincingly on stage. Benson can even croon a near-perfect Ol' Blue Eyes.
It was Benson, of course, as Judy Garland, who grabbed my leg during the most disturbing part of his monologue - beautifully timed at a point when the audience wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. In fact, Benson's timing from the start was cunning - he taunted us with his ability to read our limits and hilariously break the tension on the very brink of 'maudlin', or 'long-drawn' or 'repetitive'.
"You'd have to be British to understand most of that," stated a British member of the otherwise hugely sporting audience. He was completely wrong. Good performance art does not need a culture check at the gates - it is all-embracing. David Benson's tale wasn't just funny and touching - it threw its arms wide open.