Amelia Jane Hunter is Keith Flipp (FringeTIX)
Amelia Jane Hunter @ Fringe Factory (The Fridge)
10:30pm, Fri 29 Feb 2008
Amelia Jane Hunter appears onstage, bright orange wig and slutty trash clothes, and immediately starts addressing the nearly-full audience. This makes me, as someone who sat in the front row to offer artist support when there was only three people in the room, super-nervous; but, after ten minutes or so, the performance falls from themed-stand-up to avante-theatre.
Amelia Jane Hunter has a problem: she’s the body afflicted with Vanishing Twin Syndrome, and her “twin”, Keith Flipp, isn’t real happy about it. Amelia is a socialite, conservative, affluent; Keith is rampantly gay, flamboyant, effluent. (God, that was a great line. I’d leave it in, even if it weren’t true)
Amelia allows Keith one week of body use every three months, and we’re witness to the end of that week; Keith starts at his strip club (where he performs as Fanny Hygiene), leading to a massive drinking, drugging, cock-sucking bender leading to a black-out… when Amelia regains control of the body. And then the fighting starts… Police. Hospital. All good things.
Amelia Jane Hunter is Keith Flipp isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s the type of theatre that I’m glad the Fringe allows; grungy, edgy, funny with a tiny twinge of sadness, with a solid, confrontational, and risqué performance by Hunter. I’m certainly glad I saw it, let’s put it that way.