Former Canberran Elena Kirschbaum says her adults-only show Rouge has more than one layer. But audiences can go as deep as they like.
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The producer-director says, "At its core, it's a fun entertaining night that explores ideas around sex and sexuality."
Rouge - being performed in Canberra for the first time - combines acrobatics, cabaret and burlesque and "an opera singer with a twist".
The cast - three women and three men - "are kept busy: it's 75 minutes with 22 acts: it's fast and furious".
Rouge delves into different relationships and sexualities and kinks without judgment, she says.
In one act, for example, a woman comes onstage with a lampshade on her head and twirls a hula hoop around her waist to the sound of Nora Jones' Turn Me On. The anonymity allows audience members "to enact themselves on her".
A few acts later she comes on again, this time naked, with the lampshade on her head and a light switch on her crotch, to the sound of another song also called Turn Me On.
"It's toying with the idea of masturbation," she says, although "it's not grotesque and pornographic".
She says, "The political idea is that a woman is her own sexual person: we don't have to wait for somebody else to give us that sexual freedom."
The other half of the act, with the hula hoop, is about how sex can be "fun and silly".
Kirschbaum says of both the act and the show as a whole, "It's designed to be two sides of the coin."
Rouge has been touring for two years and although it was her vision, Kirschbaum says developing it was collaborative.
"The beauty is having really creative cast members."
Canberra born and raised Kirschbaum, 34, started her started her own production company while at Dickson College. She acted there and with Canberra Youth Theatre and also learned some circus skills, including various forms of juggling and acrobatics and circus became her primary interest. She recruited like-minded people to perform at local events such as Floriade and the National Folk Festival and built up the business that eventually became Highwire Entertainment.
"I was pretty young and naive, looking back at it," she says.
But her youthful ambition worked. She found keen people and had them trained, if necessary, and did the administrative side of things such as organising jobs, without any formal training.
She says her parents were "very supportive of me doing what I wanted to do" but wondered if what she was planning "was a realistic career opportunity or something that was just a bit of fun".
It's turned out to be both.
Kirschbaum eventually decided she wanted to focus on the non-performing side of the business as well as expand it and moved to Melbourne.
Highwire shows have toured around Australia and internationally. Rouge will spend six months of next year in Europe.
Although she started out small, Kirschbaum has increased her scope, and her budgets. Mounting a production like Rouge costs "in the high tens of thousands of dollars".
This isn't the first time a Highwire show has been to Canberra - Kirschbaum has presented previous productions at The Street Theatre.
However, she says, "This is the first time we've brought a show of this scale to Canberra" and is pleased to be presenting it in the Playhouse.
"It's a great space."
- Rouge. Produced and directed by Elena Kirschbaum. Canberra Theatre Centre and Highwire Entertainment. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. October 23 to 26. Adults only. canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.