Still by Jane Bodie, A Piece of Pie by Rik Brown, Gangland by Mirra Todd.
At The Store
Room until October 20, 2002
Reviewer:
Kate Herbert
The Store
Room in Fitzroy is maintaining its reputation for interesting programming. Its
second season of plays for the Fringe Festival is a clever mix.
Still, by
Jane Bodie, is a fine series of eight monologues dealing with craving, desire,
sex and human foibles.
Four actors
( Shaun Worrell, Natalie Carr, Mike
McLeish and Julie Eckersley) each perform two characters. The performances
are consistently strong.
Eckersley is
particularly magnetic as a woman who spies her ex-partner with his new lover in
the produce section of the supermarket. Her performance as a woman breaking up
with the love of her life is moving.
In Come,
Worrell plays the desperation, passion and frustration of first sexual
encounters. His other character is an oily, silver-tongued cad in Not
Currently.
Carr's woman
over-preparing for a date is very funny in Order. In Want Me, she is
sympathetic and moving as a woman confessing to an affair.
In Seeing
Somebody, McLeish is a harmless voyeur warmly attached to a woman he watches
through her window. As the stylish young gay guy at party in Faking It, he is
entertaining.
Bodie's writing
is well observed, complex and witty. Each monologue captures a moment, a
personality a common problem in life and love.
A Piece of
Pie by Rik Brown is a lighter piece. Although it is about a
mad couple who play a game of murderous Trivial Pursuit with a kidnap victim,
it is a comedy with some black humour.
The third
play of the program Gangland, by Mirra Todd, is a frightening investigation of
male violence and misogyny. He writing and themes are tough and relentless.
Although the action escalates too quickly, it serves the story well.
Three young
professional men meet for a catch up night on the booze. Taylor, (Simon Roborgh) is a married lawyer trying
to get pregnant with his wife.
Aaron (Eddy Segal) is a confused and insecure single male. Their
friend Sam (Sean
Barker) is an emotional thug who taunts them both about proving their
manhood. The outcome is a violent off stage attack on a woman that changes all
of them for life.
The final
piece, that I did not see, is Direct From Broadway, an Australian production of
a US musical show that won five Tony Awards.
By Kate
Herbert
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