DANDL. Adelaide Fringe. Bakehouse Theatre. 12 Mar 16
Inner life monologues don’t come more brilliantly written and performed at hyper speed than Eddie Morrison – Maximum Breakdown.
Eddie Morrison lumbers onto the stage of the Studio at The Bakehouse, which is liberally set up as if it was a cross between a back stage dressing room and avant garde one man show stage set. He whips off the Sonic The Hedgehog tshirt he’s wearing and precedes to pull another one off a rack of clothes and puts it on. The weirdness the audience is about to be enthralled by has been clearly telegraphed.
An hour of hyper edgy, egomaniacal, pump it to the max comedy ensues as the ‘completely bent on excellence before an audience’ Morrison blends surreal tales of his rather demented childhood, with artistic goals gone to seed, and battles with his manager sitting up in the bio box behind the audience.
The fabulist nature of Morrison’s writing and performance is superb, utterly gripping, giving us a sense of madness with so much imbued ‘truth’ behind it we happily accept the flipped out world he transports us to.
Eddie as a mad fool-like character is one you worry for, even as you laugh. One, whose desperation is recognisable to all, but easily deniable to ourselves that we too have been to this place, His nervous, poor microphone technique proving the perfect avenue to hook and keep the audiences’ sympathy. We care for this crazed maniac. How much, we’re not really sure, but we’re happy to listen, happy to laugh, and happy to marvel at the magic happening before us.
David O’Brien
When: 3 to 12 Mar
Where: Parks Theatre Two/Bakehouse Theatre – The Studio
Bookings: Closed
