A Hoax

Author Rick Viede achieved a rapid ride to stardom among playwrights: 2008 Griffin Award for his first play, Whore, which also won the 2010 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award; then A Hoax won the 2011 Griffin Award.

This dark comedy is as modern as yesterday: mobile phones, face book, youtube, familiar morning TV shows … you’re right in the picture.

But it cannot be taken lightly. Behind the comedy rifs are acerbic satire and studies of twisted psyches as four characters, all associated with the development, publishing and marketing of a popular ‘misery memoir’ (the hoax of the title) manipulate it to suit their own lust for identity and career aggrandisement.

Part-aboriginal girl, Miri Smith (played superbly by Shari Sebbens – she grabs top billing) agrees to masquerade, for a price, as Currah, the sexually-abused girl of the memoir.

Actual writer of Nobody’s Child is Anthony (Ant) Dooley (Glenn Hazeldine). Ant is a nice guy who desperately wants to be recognised as a writer.

Sally McKenzie plays Ronnie Lowe, a tough, take-no-enemies author agent. She respects no one but herself, and she knows what memoir readers want ─ scandal and depravity.

Carrying much of the comedy (for all the wrong reasons) is Tyrelle Parks (Charles Allen), self-styled outrageous black camp queen whose character transforms across the four-year period of the play, and so does his career. As a short video maker, he reveals the hoax, at the same time opening an opportunity for Ant to write another hoax memoir of his ‘own miserable life’ as suggested by Ronnie, attempting to further her own career.

Director Lee Lewis plays each scene like a movement of a grand symphony, with talented support from Renée Mulder (designer), Jason Glenwright (lighting design), Steve Toulmin (music, sound and AV designer) and a bevy of technicians.

Jay McKee

Images: Shari Sebbens and Glenn Hazeldine. Photographer: Al Caeiro.