Tonight I braved a brand new theatrical production to review from Company No 3 theatre at the SBW Stables / Griffin 2011 Season entitled "For A Better World".
'Braved' being the most polite adjective I could use to describe what could only be viewed as some kind of extended HSC Drama group devised performance. Here we have four women and three men all doing their best with material beyond their knowledge.
A stage set with mirrors akin to any seedy gym lined with fluorescent lighting so as to blend in with the local Kings Cross culture, there was plenty of dazzle to distract the audience from the lack of plot and point.
The seven actors plodding half naked around the set, spreading blood, dropping feathers and creating havoc that would give the best of wardrobe and set dressers a heart attack were mildly representing a war time scenario. Each character indulging in either sexual fantasies or memories from the past as each, separately go mad and commit suicide. And don't worry. I really haven't ruined the ending, as author Roland Schimmelpfennig couldn't care less about the narrative mish-mesh of 80's war & science fiction films.
For me, the tour de force of the play was when the female lead shoots herself in the head, dresses herself in a wedding dress (complete with tasteful fairy lights), chanting wildly as a half alien half giant squid attacks one of the male actors (who has meanwhile managed to change into his birthday suit).
The cast are committed to an otherwise confusing piece, even though it calls for them to parade around in white underwear for the majority of the performance. Pity one of the men was so ridiculously prissy that any attempts of sexual interaction with the naked women before him were laughable.
I checked my watch 20 minutes into the 86 minute one-act-performance and tried desperately not to do so for the remainder of the evening.
Lucky I received free tickets on this one eh?
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