Play On!

Play On! is an endearing comedy in the mould of Dinner For One, about an amateur theatre production that goes off the rails. It’s just three days before the opening night of Murder Most Foul and director Gerry Dunbar (Liz Bradley) is anxious. They’ve only chosen this play to get out of paying royalties, but it’s turgid, derivative twaddle, and worse, the playwright keeps amending the script—not that the edits improve it at all. The players vary from having way too much ego or none whatsoever. Starting with snarky dialogue, as the play progresses it moves towards farce as lines are forgotten, cues are missed, someone accidentally puts real alcohol in the tumblers and mayhem ensues.

Play On! was written in 1980 and it is a little dated but some effort has been made to update the technology. Anyone who has had anything to do with amateur theatre will find much familiar. In fact there are echoes of certain Canberra productions over the years (which will remain nameless). The would-be acting is comically exaggerated and some of the awkward postures are just weird.

Stand out performances include an overwrought romantic set piece between Billy Carewe (Riley Bell) and Violet Imbrey (Steph Roberts) and some hilariously appalling overacting by Saul Watson (Duncan Driver), which is so over the top his performance actually improves after the character gets drunk. Playwright Phillip Montague (Bradley McDowell) was quite sweet in spite of being infuriating. My favourite was the very old stage manager Aggie Manville (Marion West, coming out of retirement to be directed by her son Jarrad). Aggie’s face turns up where she’s not supposed to be and takes forever to get to where she should be and is very funny to watch. The costumes and set are spot on.

Play On! will be particularly appreciated by those involved with community theatre, but there are laughs here for everyone.

Cathy Bannister