Play On! By Rick Abbot. Directed by Jarrad West. Queanbeyan Metropolis Council. Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. Till Might 21. theq.internet.au or 6285 6290.
Play On! Is a present within the noble custom of performs about individuals doing performs. Assume Hamlet and his makes an attempt to direct The Mousetrap. Assume Backside and his mates wrestling with Pyramus and Thisbe. Throw within the earnest chaos of Michael Inexperienced’s immortal theatre handbook, The Artwork of Coarse Appearing, and you’re about there. Play On! doesn’t attain for the emotional subtleties of Michael Frayn’s backstage masterpiece Noises Off however it definitely works as much as a theatrical frenzy acquainted to anybody who has ever had a go at treading the boards.
A group theatre group is in rehearsal for what appears like a interval piece homicide thriller referred to as Homicide Most Foul, complicated in its particulars, broad in its type, set in some sort of stately residence and involving an accursed Indian diamond.
Not solely does the director Gerry (Liz Bradley) should deal with the erratic expertise on supply by the forged, she additionally has to deal with the presence at rehearsals of earnest playwright Phillip Montague (Bradley McDowell), who thinks nothing of handing out rewrites in manufacturing week.
The gamers embrace Polly and Henry Benish (Liz St Clair Lengthy and Tony Turner), veterans who can do elements like Woman Margaret and Lord Dudley of their sleep, and younger Marla Smith (Sian Harrington), who’s clearly nonetheless juggling theatricals with homework whereas she rattles breathlessly by means of her strains as Doris the maid. There’s Saul Watson (Duncan Driver) as fruity villain Dr Rex Forbes, Billy Carewe (Riley Bell) because the play’s younger hero Stephen Sellers and Violet Imbrey (Steph Roberts) as Diana Lassiter, the heroine. Simply to complicate issues, Billy and Violet have dire relationship issues in actual life.
It might be truthful to say that there’s not a delicate participant among the many forged of Homicide Most Foul and that Gerry is up towards it when it comes to directing them. Additional handicapping the manufacturing are laconic Louise (Micki Beckett), who works on sound, lighting and surroundings and the lugubrious Aggie, who stage manages and prompts in a splendidly incompetent means that greater than matches the skills of the corporate. No matter can go fallacious does go fallacious and you may see the icebergs coming.
Brian Sudding’s set has a fragile cartoonish high quality, which offsets the course and the performances properly.
It’s extremely removed from being a delicate present however it’s superb for permitting director Jarrad West and an skilled forged to easily indulge. By the ultimate act audiences might discover themselves doing likewise.