Mayhem and Madness

Bittersweet is an efficient new company taking root in North Sydney’s historic, restored Independent Theatre with a mission to profile one act plays. There’s lots of available short plays apparently, given their popularity last century and their certain appeal today for those of us who can’t concentrate on long ones.

Dubbed Mayhem and Madness, these three playlets are all over in 90 minutes.

First up is The Pot Boiler, a huge New York hit from 1916 by Alice Gerstenburg, who was an ardent populariser of one-act experimental plays.  She makes relentless fun out of the melodramatic characters and cliches of old theatre conventions, as a self-important writer/director (Nathan Farrow) bullies his actors in rehearsal and constantly interrupts to demonstrate his brilliant craftmanship to a young acolyte (Tonia Davis). 

It’s a sharp and witty first choice directed by Sarah Carradine but requiring better theatrical punctuation and changes of focus. Performing on a lower podium in front of the old proscenium arch, the company is thankfully closer to us but lacks boundaries or much lighting and production support.

The second good choice, Brecht’s The Jewish Wife, is barely ten minutes but heartbreaking.  It’s one of 24 scenes in his Fear and Misery in the Third Reich staged in Paris in 1938.  As the Nazi threat closes in, a privileged Jewish woman makes a series of telephone calls, including to her Aryan husband, deciding that for him she must leave Frankfurt. 

The creeping discrimination from friends and locals grows more apparent through her calls and we feel the tension of impending violence. Marnie Gibson doesn’t quite reach all the layers and nuances of Judith or Brecht’s playlet which charts so well the casual, often unnoticed steps to fascism. John Grinston directs.

Next to 1975 and Alan Ayckbourn’s hilarious short farce, Gosforth’s Fete, about an English village celebration thwarted by calamities. There’s the mad vicar, the cubs going feral, the self-important councillor preening before her speech (Jeannie Gee), and the hopeless affair between a fete volunteer, Milly, and the young scout master (Charlotte Edwards and Micah Doughty).

Mr Gosforth (Brent Thorpe), the organiser, is almost in control until Milly’s pregnancy gets mistakenly broadcast across the common and thunderous rain with random electrocutions washes all away.  Director Christine Firkin keeps the slapstick real and inventive and Ayckbourn’s script does the rest.  A strong finish.

Martin Portus

Images (from top): The Jewish Wife, The Pot Boiler and Gosforth’s Fete.

Photography by Christopher Hayles