Theatre: Tissue (★★★★)

Devised and directed by Samantha Maclean and Timothy Green
Performed by Ann-Marie Biagioni, Elijah Melvin and Taryn Ryan
Blue Room Theatre
Until November 26

(l-r) Taryn Ryan, Ann-Marie Biagioni and Elijah Melvin

Twenty minutes or so into Samantha Maclean and Timothy Green’s slick, erotically-charged Tissue, I stopped taking reviewer’s notes. My last scribble, a not particularly perceptive “Oh Boy! Wowee!”, was testament to both the sheer quantity of its action, and the dazzling way it had been delivered.
The story is as contemporary as the last time you Googled, but as old as time. Zoe (Taryn Ryan) and Alex (Elijah Melvin) meet in one of those modern on-line ways, and Tissue tells the arc of their love affair, through attraction, affection, compulsion and addiction. It’s pornographic, onanistic and obsessive, love measured in hits, clicks and comments, but its mutant beauty is something Sophocles and Euripides would understand.

Read the complete review in The West Australian 

Theatre: F*@k Decaf

by Tyler Jacob Jones
The Cutting Room Floor
Directed by Scott Corbett
Designed by Timothy Green
Performed by Amanda Watson, Ann-
Marie Biagioni and Jack Walker.
The Mary Street Bakery
28 May – 14 June 2014

(★ ★ ★ ★ ½)

  
I first saw this snazzy little play in June last year, and was delighted to see it having a Fringe World run. There are a couple of changes: the Fringe season is at the Frisk Bar in Francis St, Northbridge, and the actor playing the barista is now Monty Sallur, but, after a second look, everything I wrote then still applies. F*@k Decaf travels next to Adelaide for their Fringe, at the Nano Café from Feb 25 - Mar 1, and if you are reading this in that fair, distant city, I heartily recommend it to you.

When T.S. Eliot said “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”, he knew what he was talking about. So does Tyler Jacob Jones.
His F*@k Decaf, which has just finished its run at the Mary Street Bakery in Highgate, is a zuzzed up little triumph of sharp observation and café society comedy, made even more so by piping-hot performances by Amanda Watson and Ann-Marie Biagioni.
Jones is the real deal, I think. Like many others, I heard about Point & Shoot, his Martin Sims Award-winning hit at the Perth Fringe this year, too late, but the terrific F*@k Decaf sees him join talents like Jeffrey Jay Fowler and Will O’Mahoney in the first rank of Perth’s exciting young playwrights.

Link here to the original review in The West Australian