Thinking of the Victorian era as one of great refinement and manner, but also the era of extraordinary repression, Barking Spider Visual theatre presents a performance art work, a Tableaux Vivant featuring a number of Victorian Ladies  – with a difference.

Picture this: it's opening night of the Town Hall Gallery's latest exhibition - an homage to the resurgence of love for hairy men, championed by the likes of Angus Stone, The Beards and hipsters worldwide. The audience is going about their happy mingling way when a number of tall, Victorian Ladies enter the room. Each is dressed in a black skirt, heeled boots and a high necked blouse, with hair trussed up into a bun of catastrophic proportion. Each lady also carries a fan, using the traditional Victorian fan language* as a means of communicating with the audience, and each other.

However, this olde language isn't the ladies' most remarkable trait. You see, each also sports a rather fetching beard; and, should an audience member make comment or allude to the beard, the Lady in question will react and respond accordingly using her fan. It's all very proper.

One of the Bearded Ladies is also the Photographer, moving about the space accompanied by an elegant gentleman in a top hat, who assists her by carrying her photographic equipment about (as all good gentlemen in top hats should). The pair, like the other ladies, do not use spoken dialogue. The photographer will indicate a certain artwork, and she and the gentleman with the top hat will set up for a photograph. The Ladies will then draw together for the photograph.

In the tradition of daguerreotypes** and early photography, the Ladies will strike an elegant, and long-sustained pose, fans laid down, beards out proud. The gentleman will join them for the photograph, removing his top hat to expose his beard, which grows vertically from the top of his head (much like how I imagine a ye olde mowhawke would be like).

The photo pose will last for an unnaturally long time, and is designed to be a reflection or response to the artwork in front of which or around which they stand. The photographer breaks the scene; the gentleman returns his top hat, and assists her to her next point of set up; and the ladies return to mingling and looking at the exhibition. As a group, their rhythm is elegant, smooth and unruffled. Their silent poise renders them a stark contrast to the artists, the spectators, and art-fans in the crowd.

Influences for the performance art are the works of Edward Gorey – who's a bit like Aubrey Beardsley gone wrong. Gorey has a dark and wickedly macabre sense of humour, while (almost) retaining the elegance of Beardsley.

Barking Spider Visual Theatre's Beardo – Tableaux Vivant is unlike anything you're bound to see in quite a while (unless you regularly socialise with bearded women in art galleries, in which case...good for you). Head along to the Town Hall Gallery (rear entry, Lower level, Hawthorn Town Hall, 358 Burwood Road, Hawthorn) from 6pm on Thursday, November 25 and embrace the hairy love.

Find out more about Barking Spider Visual Theatre over at their website, and see what else Town Hall Gallery have to offer (like a 'Become a Beardo' workshop!) over at theirs.

* School didn't offer Ye Olde Victorian Fan-Speak alongside German and Japanese? No worries; brush up on Barking Spider's website.

** Allow me to save you valuable minutes of Googling and direct you to the official Wikipedia article on daguerreotypes. You can repay me with a beard - I mean beer.