Work, But This Time Like You Mean It

Young people working in the repetitive and exploitative corporate world of fast food is the perfect subject for the touring Canberra Youth Theatre and writer Honor Webster-Mannison.  Eight actors, as young as most of their audience, play out this madcap comedy, stationed at their posts every night in a fried chicken franchise.

Two at the counter endlessly repeat their cute welcome routine.  Another is losing control at the Drive Through - and sharing her depression at still working here at 22 - and the new girl is making mistakes. 

Kathleen Kershaw’s clever set angles sharply into a huge gutter of yellow balls, from where two hysterical kitchen hands throw the balls out as the orders, urged to be ever faster by the night manager under the tyranny of his KPIs. 

A nice extra is the friend who hangs around the counter talking frenetically - she’s drunk too many  Mountain Dew slushies.  And a kitchen hand keeps napping amongst the balls,  despite so many dexies, no-doz and Red Bull.  He has a rare quiet moment sharing when he realised he was no longer a kid.

Work could have more personal insights like these; this quieter detail of character and focus is often lost in an avalanche of shouting. But to audience delight, director Luke Rogers knows how to flick the switch to energetic vaudeville, with fabulous satirical songs, against Ethan Hamill’s impressive videos of places and cartooning chickens and Patrick Haesler’s rich sound and music scores.  Work is a very well-resourced and well-skilled, surreal production.  

The drama turns bloody when the second kitchen hand loses his finger in the deep fryer, it triggers a final call for safer working conditions, longer breaks and higher wages.

The ensemble, with roles unidentified, is Georgie Bianchini, Hannah Cornelia, Kathleen Dunkerley, Quinn Goodwin, Matthew Hogan, Blue Hyslop, Sterling Notley and Emma Piva.

Martin Portus