CRAM Collective. The Howling Owl. 5 Sep 2024
Perth based playwrights Jeffrey Jay Fowler and Chris Isaacs created a thing in 2015, Fag/Stag which belted itself a bunch of Edinburgh Fringe awards, toured Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide Fringe to boot and had a production done in Rome.
It’s easily one of the most sharp, disarmingly satiric takes on toxic masculinity, straight and gay, ever written.
It has depths to it, in the hands of the right director and cast, which smack you in the face and have you laughing at the same time, even as your soul cringes at the dark undertones in the work. Director Connor Reidy’s production is very subtle, cleverly paced, poor theatre in the tiny Fringe scale Howling Owl downstairs venue.
The effective minimalist take is accentuated by Aaron Herczeg’s standing floor lamp light with basic flood wash and Antoinette Jelk’s eerily in-the-moment sound scape of effects that take you by surprise with their ultra reality.
It all seems innocuously sitcom-hilarious in the early moments as Corgan (Henry Cooper) and Jimmy (Connor Pullinger) recount the moment they received an invite to their friend Tamara’s wedding. She’s Corgan’s ex-girlfriend, and great love of his life. She’s Jimmy’s only female crush as a gay teenager.
Three besties in their very late 20s. One getting married.
It’s the BFF boys who are stuck in arrested development as they stuff their lives up further in between playing Donkey Kong together and forever remaining on the one level.
They are not the nicest people. Really funny. Disarmingly engaging. But not nice.
Jimmy breaks up with a perfectly reasonable boyfriend as it seems to the audience. Corgan’s got an attitude about his sexy manliness. He’s wealthy, doesn’t have to work. Jimmy’s a struggling gig worker. Both are obsessed with Tinder or Grindr. Both are brilliant at misinterpreting the cues of their long lived friendship and the onset of Tamara’s wedding has pushed that up a notch or five.
There’s a lot going on beneath the comedic surface of two boys making bloody big mistakes in the lead up to Tamara’s big day.
Listening carefully, between the outrageous antics, sharp comic performances, and heady bromance gusto, one finds the beginnings of vulnerability awakening to an awareness of what’s really important.
Both lads find this process very hard. It is also very bloody funny; at times painfully so. But properly thought provoking.
You do think. You do reevaluate things.
That’s the achievement in Cooper and Pullinger’s smashing performances, ruled by exquisite comic timing, richly repulsive yet deeply engaging characterisations, and deft pacing by Director Reidy.
What does it mean to be male and love? Not what does it mean to be this or that.
David O’Brien
When: 3 to 7 Sep
Where: The Howling Owl
Bookings: Closed
