NaGL

Hallucinogenic theatre?

One of those weird, surreal dreams, which reflect your life, as refracted through an absurdist prism, or distorted in a Luna Park mirror? Pictures hang upside down on the walls.

Polish / Australian playwright Lech Mackiewicz’s latest play projects an anarchic, fragmented, metaphoric vision of Australian society.

The play is called NaGL – an acronym for ‘not a good look’ - meaning, according to the program: to describe something as unacceptable, foul, disastrous, inappropriate, or awkward.

And the dysfunctional family Mackiewicz portrays in his theatrical metaphor certainly fits the acronym, as, by implication, does Australian society.

The characters’ combative domestic existence plays out as a boxing metaphor, a drama in 18 rounds, with one side of the divided stage a boxing ring and the other a chaotic family home, with a slightly blurred boundary.

Indigenous character / chorus Uncle Chuk, played by Billy McPherson, mostly inhabits the boxing ring, introducing the titles of each round (scene), printed on rough cardboard signs in Brechtian Alientation / rough and ready street protest style, then chanting the titles as he punches into the ropes with zest; the other characters subsequently battle out these absurd slices of life, not so much in the ring, but mostly in their home. Uncle Chuk is marginalized, metaphorically and physically, from the other (European) characters and their domestic disarray, mostly observing, occasionally stepping into, but always at the fringe of, their existence.

And they’re certainly a weird mob - four white actors, with vaguely disturbing white-face clown faces – matching the distorted comic and tragic implications of society as Mackiewicz presents it. Diverse influences including clowning, vaudeville, Brecht, Absurdism, Dadaism and the surreal add to a truly bizarre mix.

Just what have I just seen? That was my immediate response as I left the theatre.

NaGL stirs the pot rather than offering clear answers, with the capacity, I’m guessing, to enthrall or totally bemuse.

Neil Litchfield