Presented by Bad Company
Reviewed Monday 23rd August 2010
http://www.bakehousetheatre.com
Venue: Bakehouse Theatre, 255 Angas Street, Adelaide
Season: 8pm every night to 4th September
Duration: 50min
Tickets: adult $22/conc $17/high school students $15
Bookings: http://www.bakehousetheatre.com or call 8227 0505
This work is an extended anti-drug and alcohol message, presented by means of examining a short space of time after three friends arrive home drunk and one of them, Jim, somersaults over the settee, breaking his neck as he hits the ground. The other two, Louis and Liz, are so far past any sort of self-control that they find his death humorous and engage Jim in their drunken antics, talking to him, dancing with him and playing twister with his corpse.
Ironically, Jim was the one who had admitted his addiction and had sought help to recover, but had since lapsed. They slowly reveal Jim’s life story, and their own, and then each finds time alone to talk to Jim, opening up honestly and confessing their real feelings. Finally, there is a voice-over as the late Jim tells his story.
A simple sheet, hung as a screen, is used to separate scenes with projections of images created by Nick Graalman of Quench Studios, Matthew Vecchio has provided original music and the lighting design is by Alexander Ramsay, all of which add interest in presenting the narrative.
Using Jim’s death as a catalyst, what we are presented with are three case studies and, as the light come up at the end, one almost expects a facilitator to appear to lead the discussion session, taking the work as a starting point. It feels as though the target audience for this piece is not so much the general theatre-going public but specific groups of those dealing with addiction, addicts, or those at risk in the near future, such as secondary or university students.
The company’s own publicity, in fact, states that it is “recommended for ages thirteen up to young adults” and that it is “highly recommended for students and parents, as this production can lead to much insightful discussion afterwards” and, perhaps, this is why mature adult audiences might find it, as I did, less than completely satisfying as a theatre piece and rather more like an ‘infomercial’.
The production features Andrew Pantelis, as Louis, and Sarah Hone, as Liz, with Kurt Murray, as Jim, and Hone and Pantelis work hard, presenting believable characters, whilst Murray has the difficult job of portraying a corpse without making it too obvious that he is doing things that a real corpse would not, like staying upright leaning against a wall.
Unpleasant, self-centred, self-destructive characters these three are, too, as we learn more of their pasts and watch their present behaviour. Louis and Liz have no respect for their dead friend. Desperate for drugs, Louis stops only slightly short of a full body search of the deceased Jim. Pantelis is new to this production, but Hone and Murray appeared in the original incarnation of the work for the 2009 Adelaide Fringe. Pantelis gives Louis a manic edge, swinging from bizarre comic behaviour in his interacting with Jim’s body, through to intense violence, whilst Hone takes her character from a happy-go-lucky party girl, in denial of her real condition, through maudlin, to despair. Murray’s final recollections are equally moving.
This would be an ideal candidate for a Theatre in Education (TIE) project, if only we had that system running in Adelaide but, even so, it would seem to be a piece that should be fully funded for touring to schools, or performed in a central location in a series of funded daytime performances for schools to attend, in conjunction with structured post-performance seminars.
Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Arts Editor, Glam Adelaide.
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