Boo

A new Australian play, produced on the smell of an oily rag, and presented as a profit share, rates for me as way preferable to some very ordinary new plays I’ve seen with big bucks and big names thrown at them in mainstream seasons, where I tend to resent my share of any taxpayer subsidy. There’s honest raw energy, as everyone gives generously of themselves for little or no remuneration, in ‘Off-OfF-Broadway’ type venues, to get new work up, even if it is somewhat undercooked.

OK, a stranded ghost helping guide humans’ destiny before escaping limbo is hardly new. Making the ghost an Aussie guy who hovers around the grotty flat where he died until he helps the new tenant, as well as an unhappy-in-love neighbour, and his own widow, to move on, helps place the story closer in time and vicinity to Newtown’s newly re-named King Street Theatre (formerly Newtown Theatre), where it’s getting its first run.

Over-extended writer and director Matthew Blackwood Hume, who also plays one of the two main characters, should have stepped back further from the work. The script is frequently overly wordy or over-written, while sometimes blocking, technicals and missing attention to detail proclaim the need for an outside eye. But it’s new local work finding its feet, and while it is in need of decisive dramaturgy and stronger direction, it has enough good moments, together with a little touch of ambiguity, to arouse interest.

The author / director gives a lively performance as the ghost. David Woodland plays the recently dumped new tenant, Pete, who is initially bewildered and frustrated by his spectral flatmate. Between them they land some rather engaging humour and touches of pathos. Matt Jones’ real estate agent essentially seems fairly archetypal, but there’s a sense of ambiguous subtext lurking in his portrayal. Initially you can identify with and enjoy Sylvia Keays performance Pete’s ex, Tiffany, but after an entrance or two too many, her scenes become repetitive, and lacking in dramatic purpose. As the love-lorn neighbour, Alys Daroy is attractively wide-eyed and vivacious. If I was distracted by lack of attention to detail earlier, not so with Katherine Shearer’s precise attention to detail as the widow, Jenny, with the contents and the packing of a baby’s tote bag. She finds truth and humanity in her act two cameo.

This is a raw night of theatre, no mistaking it - a new Australian play, rough, but enhanced by capable performances, on a night where I often shifted between being entertained and the distractions of my dramaturgical / technical ponderings.

Neil Litchfield