Poncho: Keep It Up! | Dani Cabs
Who is Poncho?
This is the question the audience asks – literally – and the question I was left to chew on afterwards. Written and performed by Dani Cabs, Poncho: Keep It Up! is a raunchy stand-up meets physical clowning comedy show that’s a cheeky cocktail of horny, hilarious, and heartfelt. It left me feeling simultaneously sated and thirsty for more.
Beginning with an audience-decided safe word, Poncho is enthusiastically educational, unashamedly erotic, and joyfully, juicily inclusive. Cabs-as-Poncho deftly straddles the line of desire and consent, of absurd and authenticity, and navigates the more uncomfortable space of self-examination with assured compassion. It’s clear that Cabs has done a lot of work in this area, diving deeply into his own experiences and bringing what he’s learned back up to the surface to share with the rest of us.
Image: Joel Devereux. Title image: Paul Castle
Poncho (the character) is all about pushing socio-cultural boundaries while respecting individual boundaries, and so at no point was there a fear that Poncho (the show) would veer into a place of self-degradation. Instead, Cabs has recontexualised the negative stereotype of the hypersexual “Latin lover” into a considered and entertaining exploration of sexuality, masculinity, and identity. It’s an absolute power move and an impressive feat of theatre to boot.
While not marketed as a specifically queer work, Poncho: Keep It Up! speaks directly to the queer experience, not just in terms of sexual attraction but also in queer vulnerability. There’s an undercurrent of struggle in Poncho, of wrestling with shame, of being emotionally cauterised by a culture that punishes any deviation to the rigid, limiting forms of male connection and expression that patriarchy demands. But Cabs has an innate talent for balancing tension and levity, which he deployed masterfully during the piñata sequence towards the end. He brought many in the audience to tears (myself included), and then, moments later, had us laughing again.
Logistically, Cabs had his work cut out for him in overcoming both a too-large venue where a more intimate space would have suited this show better, and an audience unfamiliar with the participatory nature of cabaret. It’s truly a testament to his skill as a performer that he was able to turn the space into a comedic advantage and win over the row of cis, white, and (presumably) straight men behind me by the end of the show. They clearly had no idea what they were in for, but they had a great time and they were exactly the kinds of people this work needs to reach.
Image: Joel Devereux.
One thing I would have loved to have seen developed further was the relationship between Poncho and his creator. It’s always a delicious surprise (for me, at least) when an artist manages to break the fourth wall in a performance that’s already a direct address, so it was an exciting blurring of reality and performance when “Dani Cabs” made an appearance midway through the show as one of several characters. While there’s an obvious delineation between the character of Poncho and Cabs himself, it’s fascinatingly unclear exactly where one ends and the other begins, and I’d love to see that dynamic fleshed out more in future shows.
I’ve been fortunate enough to see earlier iterations of this character as an emcee and roving performer before, and it’s truly a delight to have witnessed the evolution of Poncho through Cabs’ lens of deep empathy and unflinching honesty. The result is a show that’s a strange alchemy of intense vulnerability and hilariously uninhibited comedy that just works really damn well. Poncho: Keep It Up! is an informative and non-judgemental celebration of sexuality that illustrates just how imperative it is that we continue to dismantle environments that foster toxic masculinity. Truly juicy stuff.
Poncho: Keep It Up! played as a part of the 2022 Wynnum Fringe Festival
