On a dark Makuru evening in Boorloo, you could find no better spot than at a table in the Dress Circle Bar of His Majesty’s Theatre for Carla Lippis‘s Dark Ritual at the Perth International Cabaret Festival. You’d find yourself transported into a Lynch-cum-Tarantino version of The Wizard of Oz, as Lippis and her two-man guitar band invoke surreal visions of lost highways that lead us to the Double R Diner and beyond.
Lippis perches on a stool between her “current husband” Geoffrey Crowther on one side and Django Rowe on the other. These two guitarists create vast, haunting, tremolo-saturated soundscapes tailor-made for Lippis’s indomitable vocals. In between songs, Lippis spins a yarn about a doppelganger Dorothy setting off on a motorbike to assemble a girl gang hell-bent on revenge. Her narrative is full of vivid imagery and dark humour, and feels like it’s coming straight from a liminal ‘Red Room’ kind of space where linear time and physics don’t apply.
Lippis and Co. have selected iconic covers, many of which feature prominently in film and television, to go along with their own original music to create a perfect gothabilly/alt-country/blues mix that allows Lippis to showcase her vocal prowess and her flair for the dramatic. The cinema faves included Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” (Blue Velvet), “Sycamore Trees” by Lynch/Badalamenti (Twin Peaks), “Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave (various), “If Love Is a Red Dress” by Maria McKee (Pulp Fiction), “Bang Bang” by Cher/Nancy Sinatra (Kill Bill), just to name a few. Lippis makes each of these her own, adding twang and vocal flips for a perfect alt-country colour.
Lippis comes down off the small stage to give herself a bit more room to boogie for the last few tunes, but before you know it, the road trip through this jet-black screen dream comes to an end. Lippis, Crowther, and Rowe soon reassembled for the festival’s closing night gala on the Maj’s main stage, giving audiences one last chance to enjoy a taste of their goth cabaret and the legendary “Satanic Liza Minelli” herself.
CICELY BINFORD
Dark Ritual – Carla Lippis was presented on 21 & 22 June, 2024 at the Dress Circle Bar at His Majesty’s Theatre for the Perth International Cabaret Festival. For more information about Carla Lippis, visit her website here.
