Lady sings the blues

About a year ago I was introduced to a cabaret performer by the name of Yana Alana. She was blue in several senses of the word including melancholic in her repertoire delivery, and covered head to toe in cobalt blue paint. Suffice to say, Yana Alana stood out big-time amid a Fringe World already packed with an array of brilliant characters. She looked like a giant Smurfette on steroids but sang like no diva before her. And that’s what truly sells this girl – not mere painted aesthetic or ironic banter between tracks – but the sheer talent in her singing itself.

Sincere Talent by Yana Alana.

Kicking off her cheekily titled show Between The Cracks with a ditty simply titled I’m Blue but packed with more metaphors than the Oxford English Dictionary, Yana proves she’s a dab hand at song-writing. Her self-penned lyrics are so cunning, in fact, Noël Coward would be blushing in his grave. Even the veteran writer whose anthem she borrows her show’s name from – Leonard Cohen – could learn a little innuendo from this gal.

Between songs, Yana delivers anecdotes about the Great Bitch that is Life. Those things that drag us down but that we don’t talk enough about in public. Things like prescription medication. Like strange sexual positions. Like the sorry state of a world so infatuated with self-help fixer-upping that we neglect to lend a hand to others truly in need. Or perhaps I’m just reading too deeply here and, really, she’s just having a jolly good bit of bitching fun?

One thing’s for sure, you could view this show two times in a row and still be blown away by the clever ways in which it smacks the blues in the face. Having seen it myself a second time – utterly unchanged – I’m still revelling at the unabashed antics and absolute genius of this one-of-a-kind cabaret act.  Antonino Tati

‘Between The Cracks’ is on in De Parel Spiegeltent, Fringe World, Northbridge. Bookings through www.fringeworld.com.au. Note: the show features nudity.