Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful

Raw and funny, Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful provides a colourful snapshot of life for young adults today. It opens with Tegan (Josie Waller) and Silas (Stephen Bracken) about to get married and preparing for their bucks/hens night. Before you can catch your breath the couple flash back to the extraordinary way they met.

Rather improbably she overheard his then girlfriend reveal a dark secret while they sat in adjoining cubicles at a public toilet. With no set at all to work with (apart from the seats) it was cleverly staged by the cast acting as the doors and even the taps.

From this inauspicious beginning a romance blossoms. Writer/Director Malcolm Frawley is credited as a writer for Neighbours and the audience benefits from the brevity of his dialogue and the liberation of being able to touch on some subject matter that could not be broadcast at 6pm.

Poor Silas has to grin and bear all sorts of awkward moments in this play – often from women giving him unwanted physical attention.  Stephen Bracken deflects this with charm. His fiancé is full of spunk

The cast of 14 are given lots of good material to work. There is the ‘goth-like’ sister Sophie (Lauren Maddever) who undergoes an ugly duckling like transformation. A cheeky shop assistant ( Bass Hathaway) who also doubles as a door mat boyfriend.

What rang true was that arranging a wedding is a stressful time which can often bring out the worst in people. Fights over small matters can be blown out of all proportion.

The 90 minute soap opera flew by providing an excellent vehicle for young actors to shine.

It must be said the venue at the Sydney Theatre School is a hard to find, but even though I was saturated by a downpour getting there it was worth the effort.

David Spicer