Proof, Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, February 25 (matinee)

Boys Like Me, Courtney Act, Sydney Theatre, February 25

DAVID Auburn’s Proof had a Sydney Theatre Company season in 2003 with George Ogilvie directing Jacqueline McKenzie and Barry Otto as the father and daughter maths whizzes who share a genius for numbers and potentially a similar fate. The play won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize and the Tony award for that year, but I failed to see why. Proof has some sterling qualities, it’s true, but they are contained within a highly conventional and disappointingly creaky structure. It was an enjoyable experience because of the quality of the performances, but not a wholly satisfying one.

I’ve just caught up with The Ensemble’s current production, which is also impressive from a performance perspective (Sandra Bates directed) but no more plausible from a dramatic one. Matilda Ridgway beautifully negotiates the task of making bolshie, anxious Catherine highly sympathetic and the scenes with her father Robert (Michael Ross) are most moving. Catherine McGraffin and Adriano Cappelletta have the unenviable job of playing a pushy sister and a not terribly successful mathematician who are there to set the conflict in motion.

The notion of proof that gives the play its title is given very short shrift indeed. Odd that Auburn should have been so garlanded for it. Still, the production is worth seeing for those lovely few scenes between Catherine and Robert.

COURTNEY Act’s cabaret show, for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, is called Boys Like Me. Depending on where you put the emphasis, the title can means two things; both of which meanings, as Act explains, are true. Men are extremely attracted to Act, and how not? She is a witty, glamorous beauty. But as Act was born Shane Jenek, she is also a man. The most beautiful man in the world, as the promotional material has it, and I’m not going to argue. Certainly there is industrial-level maquillage to aid the impression, but it’s flawlessly done. And the drag persona is just part of the story, one that Act describes as living on the divide between genders.

Boys Like Me is a touching, generous and warm-hearted show about the fluidity of gender as it applies to Act and to many others in their individual ways. Her special guest last night, for instance, was Chaz Bono, a transsexual, although the point of their song together, Gender Rebels (a version of Bosom Buddies) was pretty much that you should forget about the labels. Bono isn’t the singer his parents – Cher and Sono Bono – were but you had to admire the attitude and the statement.

Act got cosy with her audience very early, confiding aspects of her, ahem, personal life that would be considered waaaaay too much information in many circles. It takes a lot of class and style to make intimate anecdotes such as these seem amusing and appealing rather than crass – and they did. It was delightful to hear that Act’s parents were in the house and had always backed their boy. Yes, apparently even when hearing sex-life details no parent would actively seek out. Bless.

It helps that Act has lovely comic timing and a sweet way with a putdown. “I was in Adelaide. Always a precarious start to a story …” was the introduction to one story, swiftly followed by an apology to that city.

Act is a fine singer as well as a charming raconteur. Highlights for me were Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl and, from Wicked, I’m Not that Girl. So touching in this context.

Act played the diva role to perfection, donning a series of glittering gowns and showing a great deal of extremely well-turned leg. The show would have benefited from running straight through rather than losing momentum with an interval but Act manages to carry the day nevertheless, aided by an excellent band.

Act now lives in Los Angeles and is a contestant in the current series of the show RuPaul’s Drag Race, a reality series about drag queens now in its sixth season. RuPaul is a showbiz legend so this is no small thing. It was divine, then, to know this hasn’t gone to Act’s head in any way. She has a sharp eye for absurdity and captured beautifully Hollywood’s boundless appetite for the unusual. She reckons that when she discovered the existence of an American TV show called Hillbilly Handfishin’ she knew there was a place for her. I looked it up, and it’s true. It’s a series about catching fish with your bare hands and feet. Go Courtney.

Proof ends at the Ensemble Theatre on March 8.