Adelaide Fringe. Grapa. The Bakehouse Theatre. 16 Mar 2017
Where do you go when you're unconscious and maybe dying? Well, here's your answer. The Prime Minister flies himself into a mountain between meetings and is awaiting rescue, or not, in life and death's halfway house. There's not much there - nothing really - except two annoying men in white coats who are as helpful as Kafka's authorities and engaged with repeated Pinter-like dialogue. But then again, maybe they would be more helpful if the PM calmed down and pondered his mortality.
But he doesn't, and that's the situation playwright John Bolger wished to convey in this world premiere production - some people are so bound up with their busy lives and hubris that they don't change, even faced with their own demise. While an attempt was made to ratchet up the tension with the threesome moving to different rooms indicative of the rescue mission moving toward a conclusion, indeed nothing really changes, and the PM's unrelenting lack of self-reflection is tedious.
If Bolger wanted me to feel that I was in some weird place - that like the PM I would dearly wish to leave - he succeeded.
David Grybowski
When: 14 to 18 Mar
Where: The Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: Closed
