The cabaret with a spiralling twist

Kovid Rat Kabarett Goes Spiral is coming to La Mama Courthouse from February 1 to 12, exposing and confronting an array of opinions associated with the Melbourne lockdown experience.

Likening this period of time to one that felt like a “global experiment”, songwriter and co-creator of the production Ella Filar said the inspiration for the show came from how people dealt with the situation.

“I have always been interested in how when people are faced with a traumatic experience they go into survival mode,” she said.

“Some people don’t cope well and they spiral out and the worst aspects of their personalities often surface, or for some people it evolves the opposite and they spiral upwards.”

“During the pandemic people started feeling like rats in an experiment.”

As a highly regarded and renowned creator in cabaret and kabarett, Ms Filar’s latest work is one that exposes the shocking realities of that time, whether they were spoken and felt by the minority or majority.

Created with Cerise de Gelder, in collaboration with their team and performers onstage, the “kabarett” performance is distinctively different from cabaret or burlesque due to this focus on more political and confronting issues.

Throughout the show, audiences will witness four drastically different characters, all of who represent varying opinions of that time.

But despite their differences, Ms Filar said they all came together in the end only to realise they have “far more in common than what they thought.”

As well as exploring deeper topics, Kovid Rat Kabarett Goes Spiral is ultimately aspiring to entertain with a mix of dance, songs, and “fantastic acting” seen through dialogues and on-screen monologues – as representative of the time. •

For more information or tickets: lamama.com.au/whats-on/summer-2023/kovid-rat-kabarett-goes-spiral

Content warning: Please be advised that the production contains strong racist comments (not reflective of the cast or producers), strong language and references to mental health.