THEATRE
At Napier Street until 12 June 1994
Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 2 June 1994
This review was published in The Melbourne Times after 2 June 1994
Men are having a personal growth spurt, there's no doubt about it. Some elements of the Men's Movement are simply Backlashing against Feminism, but others are just trying to overcome their emotional bankruptcy by getting in touch - with everything.
Peter Murphy's reworked solo play, Warriors, is one man's deep and personal probings into his own psyche as he prepares for the funeral of his son. It is an intense, touching and, at times very funny, e, although at times the performance lacks attack.
Murphy rattles around Napier Street Theatre with just one chair as a prop. The hollow space makes the character more vulnerable, glazed and fragile in his profound grief. He talks about the practical affairs of parenting and tells anecdotes about his son to distract himself from his pain. These remind him of his own childhood: his drunken father, his mother's sudden abandonment of the family, being caught masturbating.
He reminisces about missing his son's birth because he was in a drunken stupor in a motel room. He recalls trying to have sex for the first time after the birth and his wife falling asleep, so he watched Diehard on TV and clattered around the house pissed off.
What is so charming about this show is the directness and honesty of the character. He is an ordinary bloke who is bemused and confused by his own life and the mystery of humanity but wants to understand.
By KATE HERBERT
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