Theatre: The Hypotheticals

Created and performed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler and Sarah Reuben
The Last Great Hunt
Director Adam Mitchell
Choreographer Laura Boynes
Composer and sound designer Louis Frere-Harvey
Visual designer Matthew McVeigh
Lighting designer Peter Young
STC Studio
July 27 – August 5

In 2022, the population of Japan fell by 800,000, a demographic implosion four times as devastating as the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
If this is a glimpse of the future, perhaps our family photos are destined to have the kids photo-shopped out, our family holidays spent in adult-only resorts.
Perhaps our destiny is to be alone, with our machines.      
Perhaps all humanity deserves the final Darwin Award; perhaps the species most at existential risk from our carelessness and greed is our own.
In times like these, and with a zeitgeist like this, how is anyone going to even contemplate having a child?

These questions are the playground of Jeffrey Jay Fowler and Sarah Reuben’s snappy, crackling The Hypotheticals, but the game they play is at once not as deep as it might have been, but even deeper than you might expect.

Which are both good things, but hardly surprising. Over the past decade Fowler, it’s fair to say, has been Perth theatre’s most exposed artist as writer, director, performer and core artist with its leading company The Last Great Hunt.

We know him, and the games he plays, well.

He’s also a great collaborator, notably with fellow Hunter Chris Isaacs (Fag/Stag, Bali) and now with the Darwin-based Reuben, with whom he shares a long friendship and theatrical vision (their first collaboration, I’ll Tell You in Person, was a 2021 Perth Festival hit).

Both these partnerships have been based on a dialogue between alternative realities that requires great skill in both writing and performance to succeed convincingly.

In The Hypotheticals, what if Fowler was himself, a partnered gay man and Reuben was herself, a straight single woman, both in their mid/late thirties? What if all kinds of clocks were ticking, and, to the beat of that rhythm, what if she asked him if, maybe, they could have a kid together?

And if they did, what would happen then? To him? To her? To them? To “it”?

Sarah and Jeffrey examine themselves and each other, running the gamut of hope and fear, of what they expect of themselves, each other and others.

It’s very often riotously funny (their attempts at insemination by syringe, a catastrophic Passover with Sarah’s family), sometimes sad and perplexing.

They are open with each other, they talk things through, but each is on a journey neither can explain because they don’t yet know where it leads to themselves.

All of which leads to an unexpected and surprising denouement – a whatif as sly and astute as the best whodunnit.

Fowler’s previous collaborations have had the simplest imaginable staging and performance – with Isaacs just the two actors talking, perched on stools; with Reuben only their voices through headphones, but The Hypotheticals is audaciously staged, with movement and dances accentuating the characters’ internal monologues and dialogue.

Neither Reuben or Fowler are dancers, but the precision of their unversed physical work is extraordinarily impressive. The director Adam Mitchell and his choreographer Laura Boynes have schooled their performers in the minutest detail, and the result is consistent in its clarity of purpose and often thrilling in its execution.

Louis Frere-Harvey’s soundscape and Peter Young’s lighting of Matthew McVeigh’s stark cuboid set (visual design is a more apt description) are as much dancerly as theatrical, and the expressiveness of both performers owes as much to the dance as the drama.

Fairly or unfairly I’ve sometimes taken issue with Fowler’s ability to find and take the straightest path from cup to lip in his work (an impressive skill that should be avoided at all cost).

In The Hypotheticals, though, Reuben and Fowler discover and explore all kinds of slips, surprising byways and hidden places, and the result is up with his best work.

And that’s about as good as it gets.

 

Don’t delay. The short season of The Hypotheticals ends August 5.

Theatre: In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play

by Sarah Ruhl

Black Swan State Theatre Company
Directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler

Set and costume designer Alicia Clements

Lighting designer Lucy Birkinshaw

Vision designer Mia Holton
Composer and sound designer Ash Gibson Greig

Performed by Rebecca Davis, Stuart Halusz, Kingsley Judd, Tariri Mavondo, Jo Morris, Tom Stokes and Alison van Reeken

Heath Ledger Theatre until November 4

Jo Morris, Stuart Halusz and Rebecca Davis

 There’s A Hit – A Palpable Hit – In The Next Room

It’s an entertaining (if likely apocryphal) historical factoid that the first appliance of the age of electricity was the venerable and handy vibrator; it was certainly in wide use in doctors’ rooms as a copacetic for female hysteria – in other words, to cure that which ails you by the bringing on of orgasm – quite soon after those ACs and DCs started running through Edison’s wires.

The American playwright Sarah Ruhl has bounced off all this with In the Next Room, a witty, playful peek into domesticity and its pitfalls, the role of women in marriage and society, and quite a bit more besides.

Along the way she neatly avoids all of the traps of prurience and earnestness lying in wait for her, and the result is a wildly entertaining and intelligent piece of popular theatre.

It would be anyway, just on the strength of the text, but this production is lifted to its very considerable heights by the skill and talent of its creative team and cast.

Jeffrey Jay Fowler, the director, has accurately assessed Ruhl’s play for what it is; a modern take on Restoration Comedy, almost a bedroom – well consulting room – farce, and he plays it elegantly through the covers. He’s much assisted by his designer Alicia Clements, whose cutaway two-way-mirror set is wholly successful – quite inspired in fact –and allows the action to move from room to room seamlessly and often hilariously. Her costumes, which are removed, replaced and got inside with great regularity, are authentic and sumptuous.

Ash Gibson Greig has composed music that perfectly fits both the play’s acoustic era and electrical subject, and Lucy Birkinshaw’s lighting is subtly effective throughout, even when dealing with the tricky task of switching set lighting on and off like an electric lamp.

A cast this well provisioned, led, dressed and lit has a great opportunity, and they go to town on it. There are terrific supporting turns by Tom Stokes as the ardent but diffidently amorous artist Leo Irving (who gets a different, and squirm-in-the-seat, kind of vibration), Tariro Mavondo as the African-American wet nurse Elizabeth who introduces a suite of issues as relevant today as they were in postbellum America, and Kingsley Judd as the straight-laced but sympathetic husband of one of the patients of the New Machine.

Alison van Reeken, who stepped into the cast at late notice (as she is often asked to do), is glorious (as she always is) as Annie, a Ma Clampett nurse who gets swept up in all this tomfoolery.

The story revolves around the practice of the good doctor Givings, and Stuart Halusz gives a perfectly pitched performance as the medical technocrat oblivious to the torrents and torments of those around him. He’s in pretty good shape, too.

The play belongs to its leading women, and Rebecca Davis, as Catherine Givings, and Jo Morris as her husband’s patient Sabrina Daldry, both give career performances.

Morris is electric (sorry) as Sabrina, and she makes her I’ll-have-what-she’s-having scenes ­– she develops quite a hankering for her little buzzing friend – a tour-de-force.

Davis rarely gets the opportunity to show her range, but she does here, and her ability to slip easily from farce to genuine emotion is the touchstone for the production’s stance, and its success.

There’s much talk around about the sparse opportunities for seasoned professional actors in the current Perth theatre. There are reasons for it, and I don’t intend to argue the whys and wherefores in a review of one show.

This one, though, reminds us that the talent is here, and in spades. You can help by the easy act of seeing it when you get a chance as enjoyable as this is.

Theatre: Improvement Club

The Last Great Hunt

Written and directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler

Performed by Gita Bezard, Arielle Gray, Chris Isaacs, Frieda Lee and Mararo Wangai

Set and costume designer Sally Phipps

Sound and Lighting designer Joe Lui

22 June – 7 July

Groucho Marx swore that he would refuse to join any club that would have him.

The protagonist (perhaps not quite the perfect description) of Jeffrey Jay Fowler’s Improvement Club has an antonymic problem; he wants to be in a club and has a gift for starting them – he just struggles to stay in them.

Adam’s (Chris Isaacs) error is constitutional; the stated purpose, or at least the marketing pitch, of the clubs he founds is Improvement. The catch is that he has no real interest in that purpose. He just wants a way to get to hang out with people who would otherwise shun him.

They – Cameron (Gita Bezard), Dylan (Frieda Lee) and Blake (Mararo Wangai) – discover soon enough that improvement, to Adam, is measured in quantity, not quality, and reject, first, his leadership, and then him.

He tries again and again, searching for ways to ensure his primacy and survival, each time failing in the face of his own shortcomings and the ambition of others.

If you’re detecting the odour of allegory, you’re on the money.

Theatre: Bali (★★★★)

The Last Great Hunt

Written and performed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler and Chris Isaacs

Subiaco Arts Centre

Until October 28

Chris Isaacs and Jeffrey Jay Fowler

The adventures of Corgan and Jimmy

Dinky-di tales of two true blue boys…

That mightn’t be exactly how the title song from Barry Humphries’ epochal ’70s satire “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie” went, but it’s appropriate enough for the continuing story of Perth’s BBSF and BBGF. And Now, like Bazza, the fag and the stag have that most satisfying of stamps of public approval – a sequel.

This time the boys are on Australians’ favourite holiday isle, but, of course, like 2015’s hit Fag/Stag, this is no mere romp in an exotic location.

Like its predecessor, Bali is a razor sharp, witheringly witty and technically brilliant take on contemporary Australia, its mores, expectations and hypocracies.

Chris Isaacs’ Corgan (the stag) and Jeffrey Jay Fowler’s Jimmy (the fag) are in Bali for Corgan’s mum’s sixtieth, and Corgan has picked up the tab for his skint friend.

As Polonius would warn you, that’s bound to be a risky proposition, and it gets even more so when Corgan’s GF won’t pick up when he calls her, and Jimmy has picked up a gaucho amigo who comes complete with a crush.

As things heat up around and between the boys, we learn a lot about both of them – and it’s far from fun and games.

It doesn’t pay to be too judgmental, though; if you don’t recognize parts of yourself in Corgan and Jimmy, perhaps you should take a long, hard look in the mirror they are holding up to us.

Isaacs and Fowler are fine writers and polished performers, and they smoothly, and hilariously, pull off the often-tricky feat of telling two versions of the same story simultaneously, like the Rashomon Effect on speed. The acrobatic dialogue, and the laughs, keep coming, even when their darker purpose is revealed.

On the strength of Bali, there’s no reason why, like Martin and Lewis or Hope and Crosby, Corbin and Jimmy, won’t pop up again.

When they do, I’d like to see Corbin given a little more smarts and awareness than he has in Bali; there’s a little gap growing between him and the vivacious Jimmy that could do with closing so he doesn’t become merely – forgive me for this – a straight guy.

But that’s a word of caution, not a criticism; indeed, there’s precious little to criticize in this stellar outing by two of the brightest stars of Perth’s stage.

 

Theatre: The Eisteddfod

By Lally Katz

Black Swan State Theatre Company

Directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler

Set and costume designer Tyler Hill

Lighting designer Lucy Birkenshaw

Sound designer Brett Smith

Until July 9

Lally Katz’s The Eisteddfod takes us down into a tale of sound and fury.

It’s a disturbing experience, though undoubtedly a gripping one. It left me feeling a little sullied, considerably impressed, but with many more questions than answers.

I’m sure (as sure as I can be) that it signifies something. What that is, though, remains frustratingly elusive.

Theatre: Blithe Spirit (★★★)

By Noel Coward
Black Swan State Theatre Company
Directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler
Set and costumes designed by Bryan Woltjen
Lighting designed by Jon Buswell
Sound designer and composer Ash Gibson Greig
With Adam Booth, Adriane Daff, Michelle Fornasier, Ella Hetherington, Michael Loney, Alison van Reeken and Jo Morris
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre
Until 9 August

It’s hard to imagine a less opportune time to premiere a drawing room comedy about a shallow, self-absorbed chap and the dueling ghosts of his temperamental wives than the middle of 1941. 
Human nature being the resilient creature it is, though, Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit was a smash hit. It repeated its success on Broadway and on film, and remains one of those always-on-somewhere-in-the-world perennial hits.O
On opening night, by and large, the strong cast seemed uncomfortable and halting. Much of this must have been due to the late withdrawal through illness of Roz Hammond, who was to play Madame Arcati.  Her replacement, the impeccable Alison van Reeken, read from a script with skill and performed with some bravura, but the inevitable uncertainty this created was palpable.
Of course allowances must be made in such unfortunate circumstances, and it’s unwise to make hasty critical assertions under the circumstances. I’m curious to see whether, once it is bedded back in, this production has all the fluidity and élan it needs to succeed.

Read the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Old Love (★★★½)

By Chris Isaacs
Directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler
Performed by Nicola Bartlett, Arielle Gray, Nick Maclaine and Tim Watts
Blue Room Theatre
Until May 2

The Last Great Hunt, Perth’s hyperactive little theatre company that can, is back with a sharp, twisted domestic comedy for, and about, all ages.
Meet cool 30-ish couple Jim (Nick Maclaine) and Gabby (Arielle Gray) – he’s a work-from-home software maven, she’s a work-the-phones property developer.
They’re having a dinner party, but there’s tension. He’s been babysitting his niece, and hasn’t tidied up the debris; she’s struggling to choose between all but identical little black dresses. He’s way too relaxed about it; she’s way too uptight.
We know these people well. Let’s see what they get up to.

Theatre: Fag/ Stag

The Last Great Hunt
Written and performed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler and Chris Isaacs
PICA
Until 7 Feb
 
(★★★★)

Corgan and Jimmy are BFF. Or, more accurately, Corgan is Jimmy’s SBF and Jimmy is Corgan’s GBF.
Corgan and Jimmy are 28 and at a crossroads in their life, even though they don’t quite realise it and haven’t the faintest idea how to handle it.
At a loose end, Jimmy moves in with Corgan, and their two worlds collide with unintended consequences.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Welcome to Slaughter

11.47 Productions
Devised and performed by Michelle Robin Anderson, Jo Morris and Emily Rose Brennan
Devised and text by Jeffrey Jay Fowler
Directed by Michelle Robin Anderson and Joe Lui
Set design Shaye Preston
Lighting design Joe Lui
Sound design Brett Smith
Blue Room Theatre
Until 25 October
 
Welcome to Slaughter is a rom-horredy.
It’s certainly not a rom-com (no happiness ever after to be had here), but it’s not slasher, snuff or any of the other forms of horror either.
You could say it’s “a treatment of the disintegration of a romantic relationship by means of the allegorical personification of destructive thoughts, with strong elements of horror and comedy”, but that’s a bit old school, and too long to fit on a poster. So rom-horredy it is. 

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Elephents

By Jeffrey Jay Fowler
The Last Great Hunt
Directed by Kathryn Osborne
Designed by Tarryn Gill
Lighting design by Chris Isaacs
Performed by Gita Bezard, Adriane Daff, Jeffrey Jay Fowler, Pete Townsend and Brett Smith.
Blue Room until May 18

Daff, Fowler, Bezard and Townsend (pic: Jamie Breen)

Jeffrey Jay Fowler knows his way round dystopia. In Second Hands, his recent Fringe World outing, humankind had taken vanity and materialism to a horrific extreme. In Elephents the extremity at which we have arrived is apocalyptic, not merely cosmetic.
We are introduced to it in bite-sized pieces. People entering the various dwellings in which the play is set automatically dry off the sweat with towels left by the door for the purpose. Sometimes their clothes are singed. We hear of things combusting spontaneously. Umbrellas are lead-lined. The climate is to die for.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Theatre: Second Hands

Little y Theatre
Written and directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler
Developed and performed by Austin Castiglione, Nick Maclaine, Holly Garvey, Georgia King and Renee Newman-Storen
For Fringe World
PICA until Feb 22

I suggested to some people who had just seen Jeffrey Jay Fowler’s ghoulish suburban comedy, Second Hands, that he could be the next David Williamson.
They were horrified that I would consign such an adventurous young writer to the remainder bin of Australian theatre, trotting out middlebrow current affairs dramas to pad out the subscription brochures of the state theatre companies, but they rather missed the point.
Which is that Fowler has the rare gift of writing genuinely funny, genuinely sharp dinner-table dialogue, and the ability to ratchet it up and down the emotional scale from banter to desperation at will. Only time will tell how Fowler chooses to use his ability; what’s indisputable is that he’s got it, and in spades.