Instructions For Correct Assembly

Hari and Max are trying again. Having lost a difficult son, forever swearing and asking for money, they attempt to build a new one from an IKEA-style flat pack. Despite Max’s nervousness and the low-grade standard of the instructions provided, a correct (or near-correct) assembly is achieved and a ‘perfect son’ is made. Despite occasional embarrassing moments, the family is at last complete.

This play, here Australianised with the assistance of writer Thomas Eccleshare, was premiered in 2018 at the Royal Court’s Jerwood Theatre in London with Jane Horrocks as Max. It’s made up of short scenes of disconnected family life that lead to disaster.

Hari (Nick Curnow) and Max (Jane Wallace) are assembling a pack of human parts that will become their new son, Jan. They follow all the instructions and gradually their boy appears. Hari is not so good at this; his underwhelming kit, reminiscent of Bunnings, is not guaranteed to get best results.

Gradually, it emerges that their first son, Nick, has died of drug addiction. Since Nick and Jan are played by the same actor, and played exceedingly well, a direct contrast is made between the fallible humanity of the one and the man-made precision of the other. And there’s the pressure of perfectionism on parents, and the promise of Artificial Intelligence to completely remove the pain of these experiences. There’s plenty to admire in Thomas Eccleshare’s vision.

Ben Chapple plays both brothers, one natural, one not, with a total amount of conviction, either in flashback or in battery-powered replacement. His responses are hilariously modified, three or four times, by his father’s remote control.

Completing the cast are David Allsopp and Jacki Mison as a visiting disapproving couple, with Kyra Belford-Thomas as their daughter, shocked by proceedings in the family.

The play is directed by Hailey McQueen, who gets the characters just right, but leaves us to have long waits between scenes. 

The setting by Jacob Parr is a range of inner rooms, all strung out on the Flight Path floor, and painted an eerie white. Sound by Charlotte Leamon is always intriguing.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer Patrick Phillips.