Max Sharam is a bit of an icon. She walked away from the commercial music scene in the 90s (after major success and a string of hits) to explore music theatre, fringe performance, animation and film-scoring. Max Sharam Is Mezzo Cuckoo draws those strands together in a genre-defying solo show that is a howl of pure rage. 

Sharam sings throughout, and what a voice she has: operatic, powerful, and stop-you-in-your-tracks beautiful. Yet we rarely get to hear it that way as she bends in and out of her range, flattening her tone to create harsh, discordant sounds. ‘My middle C is middle aged’, she sings, but it’s not that, not really. Rather, she’s been silenced by violence; her voice has been stolen by the men in red ties in a metaphor that feels all too familiar against a global backdrop of relentless violence against women. 

Moments of beauty happen when Sharam interacts with her own projected backdrops which fade and fizz, creating a picture of a world where a woman can die on the subway and no-one notices. But Sharam does notice: this is a show of tiny details, whether in the meticulous discipline of her voice or the placement of her hands. 

At a mere 30 minutes, there’s a sense that this piece of theatre/art installation/opera is a work in progress rather than the finished article. It’s powered by anger, but you also need emotion to engage audiences. Sharam plays at the edge of this: there is no redemptive arc here. Perhaps that would mean letting us off the hook, but ultimately it makes this piece something we view, rather than something we feel. Nonetheless, it’s a work that should very much progress and a voice that needs to be heard. 

Max Sharam Is Mezzo Cuckoo continues at Star Theatres until Sunday 22 February. 

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