State Theatre Company South Australia. Space Theatre. 30 Jul 2024
With a brave dive into the extremely unlikely, Van Badham may emerge with a smile.
A musical rom-com on stage is a wildly left-field diversion in 2024.
But diversion it is. Thoroughly diverting.
And, this very promising Australian playwright fulfils yet more of her shining promise.
The play describes a blind date at the man’s super-neat city high-rise bachelor apartment. It’s an incompatible match but impelled to continue when the world goes abruptly into “shelter-in-place” lockdown. The clashing pair then face an indefinite time conflicting in confinement. And, tolerance, it seems, is not their thing.
Badham with co-writer Richard Wise, found the rom-com concept from the true story of a hapless couple forced to cohabit from the first great Covid-19 lockdown in China. They married this plot, so to speak, to Arthur Aron’s 36 Questions which purport to deliver intimacy. Thus do our nameless protagonists work their way through the questions as time goes by, gradually revealing more of themselves. There’s plenty of humour in the business of awkwardness and yet more to be found with the cheek-to-jowl rock band neighbours whose apartment window gazes most intimately into the bachelor pad. The juxtaposition of these two worlds is core to a simply stunning, albeit oddly fridge-free set design by Jeremy Allen which comes to delicious light under Gavin Norris’s lighting. The interaction of the neighbours also is key to some giggles, not to mention when, accompanying the two principals, they sing some wickedly perky chorus lines. Not that everything they sing thrills this critic. Richard Wise is responsible for the music and he gives one song during which, with the audience already in a chill breeze of over-airconditioning, one feels as uncomfortably trapped as the do the characters. This is when keyboarder Sam Lau lets loose with the most aggressive and abrasive punk solo this side of Sid Vicious’ grave. Wise’s music otherwise is generally fun and often sensitive with some really elegant arrangements. Not that one goes away humming any of the tunes. It is a long time since a new musical had that effect. Nonetheless, this production is a musical and much of the interaction is broken into song. Therein, with Chaya Ocampo tending to stridency as The Visitor, it is Charles Wu as The Resident who really beguiles. Among other things, his rendition of the song Life Is So Small is deeply moving. His is a lovely performance all round as the diffident bachelor.
Van Badham being Van Badham has allowed a wholesome little political thread to run through the play, nicely enabled by The Visitor bragging the feminist agenda of her degree in gender studies. And, she gives a gentle serve to our generational dependence on internet connectivity, on online shopping addiction, and messaging versus speaking.
There are some jewels dotted throughout the play which shines with the sleek directorial touch of Mitch Butel. Similary, that little band through the window, Lau with James Bannan Jr and Jackson Mack, under Kym Purling’s expert musical direction with Andrew Howard’s sound, sing their own song of nifty production values.
Thus is this topical confection of a modern rom-com musical to be most cheerfully recommended to audiences of all ages.
It’s a bit of a feel-good gem.
Samela Harris
When: 30 Jul to 17 Aug
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au
