Come on a journey, suggests a gawky, effusive American in a silver spandex bodysuit with a flashing strap-on. Not through space, as one might suspect, but through a strange atmos of tongue-in-cheek sex education, raving stream-of-consciousness storytelling and feminist comment.Ryan Good obviously has sex on the brain. The show may start with the tale of heart-wrenching break-up and end with the revelation of his new baby daughter, but in between there are instructions on how to pleasure a man via the perineum, a strange dream involving his genitals and breast milk and the reenactment of Cosmopolitan’s ten worst sex tips.
In quite an ambitious move, a male audience member is pulled up to join Good on stage for most of the show and marry him at the end. As luck would have it on this night, Good chose well with someone who was funny, riffed quite well with him and was happy to have a heart shape shaved into his chest hair. But one couldn't help imagining how badly it would have fallen flat if the volunteer had been unwilling or shy.
Good is certainly bubbly and elicits plenty of “lols” from the crowd. He gets them throwing scrunched up bits of Cosmo magazine at a centrefold of Burt Reynolds and doughnuts on his flashing dong. But it’s all a bit messy and confusing really – it’s hard to pin down the show’s raison d’être. Is it his tale of love and loss and polyamorous bisexuality? A hammy sex education? A feminist comment on the contradictions and condescension of women’s magazines?
Ironically it ends up being just like the women’s magazines he’s trying to comment on: light entertainment but mostly unfulfilling.
Lucy Tafler presents
Cosmonaut
by Ryan Good
Venue: Arts House | North Melbourne Town Hall, 521 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne
Dates: 16 September – 1 October 2016
Tickets: $25 – $20
Bookings: melbournefringe.com.au
Part of the 2016 Melbourne Fringe Festival
