Treading Players. Melbourne Street Laundromat. 25 Feb 2016
Happy Ending is a somewhat contorted comic theatrical creation.
As a piece of writing focusing on the complex issues the business of professional massage therapy encounters when sex intrudes, there isn’t much new offered that hasn’t already been dealt with across multiple mediums. At best, playwright Gemma O’Neil offers a reasonably plausible TV sitcom level set of intertwined character story lines involving two massage therapists and their clients who unknown to therapists Gemma (Eva Justine Torkolla) and Melissa (Danae Swinburne) are connected in one way or another. At worst, the writing comes across as still needing several more drafts to find and develop some genuinely challenging depth to issues merely noted, rather than explored so there’s greater structural complexity to the work.
As a production, it's stripped back nature - bare stage, massage table, simple costuming and minimal props - does great service to a number of performances which point clearly to the greater potential in the piece not found.
Danae Swinburne’s Melissa, caught up in the bind of financial, emotional and sexual issues posed by ‘dating’ a client, gives a performance imbuing the writing with everything it lacked - humour with a buck each way’s worth of intelligent, questioning pathos.
Happy Ending’s promise as a work of gutsy comic drama will one day deliver when much more work is dedicated to it.
David O’Brien
When: 25 to 28 Feb
Where: Melbourne St Laundromat and Gluttony – The Carry-On
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
