Heavenly Bodies & Beautiful Souls

How would you feel if you were trapped in the lift of an old building with one or more strangers and/or old friends or colleagues? The emergency button doesn't work, there are no mobile phones and there's a fire raging outside somewhere, where, you don't know. 

This was not the setting of these two one-act plays but moreso the psychology behind the impact this kind of situation could have on relations between each character right then and there. 

The first play, set in ravaging second-world-war-Singapore, evokes a similar scenario between a married soldier who, after a nudge from a mate, books in for an hour with a transsexual prostitute escaping from society pressures in hometown Adelaide. The second, in Bangkok, is a confrontation between three characters on death row, each able to communicate with each other from their single cell, after a light drug transaction goes terribly wrong. 

Without wanting to reveal too much about the outcomes (reveal also=nudity), these plays concentrate more on the psycho-sexual side of the relationships and appear to be written from a deeply erotic point-of-view. 

Both characters, for example, in the first play, are such 'lookers' in their own right, including a superlative character performance from Sam Ryan as the soldier, Cutty, while the suggestion of the homo-erotic relationship between one of the two brothers in the second play, who is mentally handicapped, questionable, though touching. Also included is the resolve of an emotional bond with displayed ample-bodied David, played by Zachary Boulton, and the passing sentiment of a brush with lesbianism, and perhaps love, from the predominantly straight female prisoner, Beth, in an emotionally packed and stirring performance by Casey Woods. 

These controversial scenarios concocted by the author are an ingenious device to reveal those hidden streaks in human nature we sometimes overlook or keep hidden. They also seek to ask questions.

The title Heavenly Bodies & Beautiful Souls couldn't have been a more apt choice of words to describe these two engrossing and evocative Freudian-based dual experiences. 

Brian Adamson

Images: CG Photography Brisbane