Milk Bar’s Review Of Poet Vs Pageant

The stage is set. A single poet dressed in drama blacks glares at the intimate audience as if to say: ‘Right now, I can be anyone, I can do anything.’ Downstage right stands a table – a tiara perched on a show cushion and a stand, behind which lies signs which I know will signal the chapters of the story. The lights dim, and she speaks.

Poet vs Pageant, the latest creation by poet and theatre-maker Telia Nevile, follows the story of a poet and her overbearing ego, who together battle to overcome the hells of a beauty pageant and to emerge victorious. It’s a poetic epic that was daring enough to be marketed as following in the footsteps of The Odyssey and The Illiad – a comparison that fired up both my scepticism and my intrigue.

Nevile’s sophisticated language and rhythm, however, arrested my scrutiny and took the audience and myself on a hero’s journey that both glorified poetry and poked fun at the stereotypical modern poet. Though the end seemed a bit rattled off, the epilogue of the piece left the audience feeling inspired as Nevile turned from addressing her poet to addressing the audience.

The roots of this poetic style are deep set in the rhythms of romantics such as Wordsworth and Coleridge – the rhythms and language that distinguish the great poets from the amateurs. Mixing this with the cheeky, experimental theatre style characteristic to Melbourne’s contemporary theatre makers, Nevile has managed to remind the world – or rather, a few small rooms of people – that good poetry is the greatest form of storytelling.