A Stan Is Born! cabaret preview: Parasocial toe-tappers
Alexis Sakellaris is hitting the Festival with a handful of original tunes and uber-fan status
Musical theatre performer Alexis Sakellaris is fresh to the world of comedy but his autobiographical cabaret show has already made a splash. A Stan Is Born! receives its Australian premiere at Adelaide: think Bo Burnham, but gay. They say write what you know and Sakellaris is a proud stan with a PhD in Stanology (if such a thing exists). So what does stan stand for? Super-duper-uber-fan, specifically of the pop divas who sustained this New York-born, London-based artist through a childhood spent in rural Germany. We’re talking Celine and Mariah, Whitney and Beyoncé: lifesavers for a confused kid struggling to transition from an anything-goes metropolis to a conservative small town where they don’t speak the language, in any sense.
Rather than a conventional coming-of-age confessional, Sakellaris homes in on the tweenager wilderness years when he struggled to fit in, leaning specifically on female role-models for safety and support. The show is replete with impersonations and playful stereotypes, hairography (gotta work that mane) and ten original songs written from a childhood perspective but with ample opportunity for diva riffing and a core takeaway message: ‘If you can’t stan yourself, how the hell you gonna stan somebody else?’
A Stan Is Born!, The Garden Of Unearthly Delights, 15 February–22 March, 9.30pm.