IN CONVERSATION WITH: Shaboom!

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We sat down for an exclusive interview with American punk collective SHABOOM! ahead of their run at Soho’s Dean Street venue from 11-14th June. The collective is made up of Paul Soileau (aka Christeene who also performs solo at Soho Theatre Walthamstow on 7th June), Silky Shoemaker and Lex Vaughn.

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SHABOOM! is described as existing on the edge of chaos — what inspired you to explore the space between breakdown and breakthrough?

The first performance we ever did was an after party in 2016 for OUTsider Festival in Austin,Texas. We didn’t really have any specific ideas (or budget) around it, so we threw a bunch of ideas together like cardboard sex party-meets petting zoo-meets late nite cabaret, with unending nerve-jangling ragtime piano music playing the entire time. We spent a week making a cardboard cityscape with glory holes, threw some performance prompts scrawled on paper into a fishbowl, grabbed some gross clothes and a bottle of whiskey and let’er rip.

Shaboom is the expression of ourselves; shame, disgust and mayhem pushed to its idiot limit and turning it into something we and the audience can revel in.

The three of you come from such rich, individual artistic backgrounds. How did this collaboration come about, and what does working as a collective allow you to do that solo work does not?

Before we were born, ageless lesbian witches from Canada and the dirt roads of Florida predicted our trio’s genesis, and that we would be making work together in the future.

The collective makes us more adherent to deadlines and responsibilities, and also allows for a liveliness in idea generation, which is mostly playfully competitive within us. It also makes a handle of gin cheaper. Solo work allows us to fuck off until our bitchy muse is ready…or until we are threatened with a lawsuit.

There is a strong thread of queer irreverence and satirical slapstick throughout the show — what does humour offer as a tool for dismantling societal norms?

Shaboom is kind of an active scheme that tries to expose just how dreadfully absurd everything is, and having three dirty queer half-nude bodies deliberately bumbling onstage definitely helps to deliver on that promise.

The thing that we hear from audiences over and over is that for the duration of the show they are entirely present, which at this moment in time feels essentially political considering we live in an age of perpetual distraction. 

Clowning, cabaret, visual art and live performance all collide in SHABOOM! How do you approach building something that refuses to be pinned to one genre?

We share a pretty hefty cache of cultural references, i.e. old hollywood, 80s comedies, 70s tv shows, niche performance art, and then throw it through a space age self-cleaning cat litter box.

You challenge traditional ideas of success and failure in this piece — what do those words mean to you now, as artists and performers?

Success: 

• Wigs on horses
• Apples with sunglasses
• Dogs that tap dance
• Monkeys who work on typewriters, 
• Little kids dressed up like old ladies, old ladies dressed up like little kids

Failures:

• When you put cowboy hats on pigeons and make em fight to country music.
• Shaved cats
• Cats when you shave off just the back half
• When they put a cat in a beret and then pretend like its in a French restaurant and the maitre d comes in acting all snooty 
• Big shoes on tiny horses

What do you hope audiences take away from the delirium, absurdity and mayhem of SHABOOM!? Is it more about reflection, release, or something else entirely?

We want them to come screaming out of the theatre, eyes blazed and hair blasted back, feeling like they’ve just been shat out of a tornado with googly eyes.

Shaboom! is at the Soho Theatre, Dean Street venue from 11-14th June. Tickets here.