Regent Room, Melbourne Town Hall until April 20, 2014
Star rating:****
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Review also online at Herald Sun.KH
Michael
Workman is both a whimsical comedian and an extraordinary storyteller whose metaphysical
musings and metaphorical storytelling cannot be pigeonholed.
He
weaves smart and very funny gags amidst a fantastical tale of a painfully thin,
morphine-addled news correspondent who travels to a war zone to report on a
bomb that will start people dreaming again.
Workman
stands comfortably alone on stage with only imaginary props, design and music
to accompany him; even the Scotch he sips is mimed and his invisible stool gets
its own laughs.
His
show defies genre and, he says, “Is a complex metaphor for the genesis and
extinction of self-awareness.”
Workman
makes the audience roar laughing at ordinary things viewed through a distorted
lens, then draws us in to his bizarre story with his compelling presence,
idiosyncratic style, vivid characterisation and atmospheric conjuring of
location.
He
starts with a swift, witty parody of vaudeville-style jokes – “He was so thin.
How thin was he?” – then the gags roll into observations about Happy Meals,
relationships, cougars, people talking to babies, smoking, or a train driver’s
incomprehensible voice message.
The
collision of unlikely concepts and Workman’s beautifully crafted, lyrical
language are the signatures of his unusual and totally magical comedy.
In
his war story, people stopped dreaming or forgot how to dream, so Workman
obliges us to muse on the nature of existence and to create new myths about
life on earth. Heady stuff – but funny.
By Kate Herbert
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