Almost Face to Face

Almost Face to Face
Written & performed by Stephen House. Directed by Peter Green. The Butterfly Club, Carson Place, Melbourne CBD. 8 – 12 May 2018

There’s no doubt – and it’s not saying anything new – that Stephen House is a superb raconteur.  With a subtle change of voice or tone, a flick of the eyes, an inclination of the head, an unsteady step or a rapid move across the bare stage he conjures up characters and places vividly.  They are the characters and places of the Dublin demi-monde – addicts, prostitutes, rent boys, dealers and drifters. 

Mr House, who looks like a rough-head Aussie bloke who’s been around the block - and under it - too many times, is a participant in what he describes and our guide.  His observations are sharp and original, but far from cool and objective.  His subjects have needs and emotions (like anyone) and so does he.  Over twenty-four hours, as he lives, staggers, falls, takes ice, f**ks, feels love and failure, he takes notes – which he turns into his ‘show’ or shows – like the one we’re seeing - the source of the money in his pocket.  But this is no series of random anecdotes; there’s a narrative structured by need, and a mystery set up at the start pays off and is unhappily solved.

Almost Face to Face is Part Two of a projected trilogy, the first part being Appalling Behaviour, a comparable tour of the denizens of the Paris demi-monde.  This show revives the 2014 version (for which Mr House was nominated for a Green Room Award) and continues the Paris story in a different city – Dublin – with some recurring characters, but plunges right in without explanation.  At once we are in a tiny room two storeys up, overlooking the Liffey, with an immense woman, Ellie-May, known as Miss Big and whose speciality is fellatio… But even shared sadness can be oppressive and Mr House – or his alter ego - escapes…

If this acutely observed and sometimes touching story has a flaw it is its underlying self-pity and sentimentality.  Mr House’s on-stage persona is rather like the wild-eyed bloke who corners you in a pub to tell you his story.  You are held, even fascinated, but there’s an underlying insistence that this is real life – and nobody knows the troubles the storyteller has seen.  Here we have a marvellous performance, but at the end, the confession (for that’s what it is), yes, has established common ground and fellow-feeling, but it loses its grip as its skilful manipulation becomes clear.

Michael Brindley

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