Lovepuke by Duncan Sarkies, directed by Naomi Brouwer for The Street Theatre and ANU Drama Department at The Street, November 1-3.
I thoroughly enjoyed this very stylish production of a highly stylised short satire on sex.
A lightweight piece from a literary standpoint, published in Sarkies’ native New Zealand in Eleven Young Playwrights (1994), Lovepuke shows its age and the youth of its writer at that time. The lavatory humour (the ‘puke’ side) and the sexual activities of the eight mixed pairs (the ‘love’ side) probably belong nowadays to a younger group than the early 20-somethings that seemed to be represented here. Still that didn’t stop an ageing fader like me recalling the twists and turns of youth.
But the play could have failed without a director and cast who so clearly understood a style which, if one is looking for a literary reference, has a distant cousin in Dario Fo and even a cousin once or twice removed in commedia. The detail of body language, facial expression and nicely exaggerated voices kept the drama alive. Every action and spoken line produced an ironic commentary on the conventions of love and the exchange of bodily fluids. Every actor played up the outward characteristics of each stock personality just enough to make us laugh at, but not too much so as to stop us from laughing with, the character.
Cast members Thomas Connell (Kevin), Byron Fay (Ivan), Cara Irvine (Louise), Jasmin Natterer (Hermione), Aaron Ridgway (Glen), John-Paul Santucci (Nathan), Virginia Savage (Marissa) and Carol Whitman (Janice) all deserve high praise. All current or recent ANU students, they have demonstrated the value of The Street Theatre’s partnership with the ANU Drama Department.
However, the season seems to me to have been too short. This production should be seen by college students as a model for drama students, as well as being great entertainment for the much larger number of young adults than could be accommodated in three nights in The Street Studio.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
No comments:
Post a Comment