THEATRE
Written by Alistair Baldwin by Malthouse Theatre
At Beckett Theatre, Malthouse until 13 August 2023
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***
This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 5 Aug 2023. KH
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| (L-R) Max Brown, William Rees -credit Tamarah Scott | |
The premise of Telethon Kid by Alistair Baldwin is interesting: is it an ethical breach for a doctor to have a sexual relationship with a disabled, former child patient who is now an adult? The translation of this idea into a piece of theatre does not hit its mark on all counts.
Sam (William Rees), a young man with an extremely rare form of muscular dystrophy, was the poster child for the 2017 Perth Telethon for kids with rare diseases. He is now an openly gay, YouTube celebrity and disability influencer. When Sam engages in a sexual fling with his former, childhood medical specialist (Max Brown), the doctor is confronted with an ethical issue that derails his potentially stellar research career into treatment for Sam’s “orphan” disease. (An orphan disease is so rare that it rarely attracts research funding.)
This ethical dilemma is the core of the story and the most interesting part of it. Sam insists that he is now an adult and has “agency” and that this is his choice. However, as Sam’s former specialist, the doctor faces accusations of conflict of interest and breach of medical ethics. However, the execution of this play and the exposition of the main premise are not completely successful.
The pair’s sexual encounter takes place in a hotel room at a conference for Geneuris, a ravenous pharmaceutical company that is not only promoting its new drugs but offering a $10 million prize for research into treatment for an ‘’orphan” disease. Sam is the featured patient for his condition and his former doctor is the primary researcher.
Baldwin incorporates black humour to explore the fact that death is on the horizon, sooner rather than later, for Sam. Sam satirises, pillories and offends those who are part of the able-bodied community and the medical profession that he sees as having marginalised him, treated him as a curiosity and as someone to be pitied, stared at, studied or paraded as a PR novelty to their own advantage.
Perhaps this would be a stronger play if the doctor and his predicament were the centre of the narrative. Sam is flamboyantly self-confident in his sexuality, disease and place in the world, but the doctor is the one who is in crisis. His story could drive a much more penetrating play dealing with the same issues.
There are several problems with the script and the production: the dialogue is too informational although it is interesting to know some of the medical technical details; characters’ interactions too often become didactic or are reduced to gags; some of the gags, at the expense of both able and disabled people, become repetitive; the simulated sex scenes are unnecessarily repetitious; and the play misses a golden opportunity to explore a second thread about another, unseen doctor who is a genuine sexual predator.
Brown performs in a more effective and naturalistic style compared to the other three actors. He shifts from dignified to tipsily seductive, mortified and, finally, shattered. However, Brown seems far too young to play the specialist who treated Sam as a child; an older doctor would make the sexual relationship seem even more transgressive.
The broad performance style of the other actors creates caricatures rather than fully developed characters and this, combined with the frequent quips and gags in the dialogue, causes the more serious content to be lost.
Rees, as Sam, is cheerful, playful and audacious but he plays the character too much on one note. Effie Nkrumah’s KT, the big pharma marketing manager, is so over the top as to be completely unbelievable, while Evie, played by Ashley Apap, is an underwritten cipher.
Telethon Kid has great potential as an educative piece of theatre, but the script needs some restructuring, editing and dramaturgy to make it more effective.
By Kate Herbert
Cast
Doctor - Max Brown
Sam - William Rees
Evie - Ashley Apap
KT - Effie Nkrumah
Creative Team
Director - Hannah Fallowfield
Dramaturg – Mark Pritchard
Set Designer - Christina Smith
Lighting Designer – Rachel Lee
Composition/Sound Design – Danni A Esposito
Intimacy Coordinator- Amy Cater
Disability Culture & Access Coordinator – Zoe Boesen
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| (L-R)Max Brown, Effie Nkrumah, William Rees-credit Tamarah Scott |
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