DRINK VIOLIN 2
23/02/2022 - 24/02/2022
Production Details
Chris Prosser explains the background to the show: “I was never totally happy just playing the violin. Something was missing. Now I know what it is: I want to sing and act at the same time. I like to drink the violin whilst playing it, become intoxicated, and vocalize with it – sometimes in English and other times in a spontaneous made-up nonsense tongue, to enhance the mood of the song. Now I perform at the interface of violin and voice.”
These songs make for an unusual form of music theatre, presented as stand-up with chat. Here are some of the song titles : Zany Serious, As the World Burns, Not the Messiah, Zmeekl Dance, To the End of Loch Doone, A Self Pity Extravaganza, Famous Last Words, Boiling in Dunedin, Mutterings and Mastication, The Smug Monk.
Pyramid Club, 272 Taranaki St, Mount Cook
Wednesday 23 – Thursday 24 February 2022
7:30pm
General Admission $10.00
Fringe Addict $8.00
Ticket + $5 $15.00
Ticket + $10 $20.00
BOOK
Theatre , Physical , Music , Improv , Comedy ,
45 mins
Entertainingly colloquial lyrics
Review by Margaret Austin 24th Feb 2022
Chris Prosser begins his performance Drink Violin 2 at the Pyramid Club by explaining why he’s barefooted.
“I’m tall, and if I wear shoes while playing, my violin bow will hit the ceiling.” Fair enough as a comment on the Pyramid Club’s performance area.
Prosser hasn’t performed for a while, and tonight is to give him a chance to try out some new songs, accompanying himself on the violin.
You can make a song out of anything, I guess, and Prosser proves it with a repertoire as wide as it is intriguing. His first number, ‘Boiling in Dunedin’, describes chopping up lead pipes and converting them into nails.
A hard act to follow? No way. We then get to hear about the antics of St Gerard Monastery’s smug monk, why eating is a never-ending job – “You can’t have teeth without the gums” – and the impending horrors of an old folks’ home: “Hold your bladder, that will make you gladder.”
The rhymes are occasionally forced, but Prosser’s lyrics are colloquial and for the most part audible, and their effect enhanced by his playing. I especially enjoy the chant of the Hassidic Jews in London days, his comeback to a relative who accuses him of being “a feeble sheep” for following government edicts re vaccines, and who can beat his final song, ‘Famous Last Words’: those of Oscar Wilde concerning the wallpaper as he lay dying in a Paris hotel bedroom.
It’s an entertaining evening and Prosser should feel encouraged to go for Drink Violin 3.
[The first Drink Violin was at BATS as part of NZ Fringe 2017 – ed.]
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