The stage was set at the Opera House’s Drama Theatre for another performance as part of the Sydney Festival. As a subversive satire on the human condition and particularly on male dominance, this promised to be an exciting play. However, ultimately, while there were moments of promise, this felt like a play that was confused about its concept and execution and unfortunately, fell flat in a number of ways. 

The initial concept was interesting and provided a strong base to start off the play. The interviewer, Feldim Cannon and the playwright Adrienne Truscott sit down, deep in conversation about Truscott’s recent play, which is highly allegorical. Cannon and Truscott meld between fiction and reality throughout the play which serves as a mechanism for Truscott to critique the human condition and the dominance of male voices, especially in the creative arts. It was an important point that Truscott sought to make and the setting lent itself well to make that kind of statement. 

However, the play was ultimately quite heavy handed in its symbolism, putting forth its message quite clunkily. Additionally, the chemistry between the performers was somewhat stilted at times which made it hard to truly engage with the performance. This meant that the message felt quite forced and lacked the poignance that it should have had. Some directorial choices felt a little off as well, such as the decision to continue talking at the end of the play as the audience left. While the point of doing this was clear, it created quite an uncomfortable scenario when the point could have been equally made by a short epilogue at the end. 

Overall, this play had an interesting concept and was the right length to make a poignant and incisive statement. However, ultimately the execution of this work let it down, which was evidenced by the lukewarm applause from the audience at the end (who, I think, were more confused than anything else). Perhaps that is the point, but I think it needed to be more clearly made.

Rating: ★★★

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Photo credit: Ste Murray