Canberra Playhouse until March 31st.
Reviewed by Bill Stephens
This gritty little play certainly has coarse language, strong
sex scenes and adult themes. It’s definitely not a musical although it does
have songs, and it’s astonishingly well-performed by Cora Bissett and Matthew
Pidgeon.
Bissett plays Helena, a cynical, lonely lawyer and serial
bridesmaid who hangs out in wine bars, and several other characters who inhabit
the narrative. Her rich Scottish accent
often makes it difficult to decipher her lines, but there’s no mistaking her
body language. Pidgeon plays Bob, a
small-time crook who cheers himself up by reading Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from the
Underground”.
After Bob accepts Helena’s
offer of a night of unbridled sex, no strings attached, they embark on a
frantic relationship which includes a wild weekend disposing of 15,000 pounds
which Bob should have deposited into a bank for an associate. The play skips
back and forth in time, during which Bob finds himself musing on life after 35,
and, at one point, engaged in a long conversation with his penis.
The Edinburgh Festival origins of “Midsummer” are obvious in
the messy bedroom set, which, while appropriate, looks unattractive and
makeshift on the playhouse stage. But
it’s the freshness of the writing with
its overlaid dialogue and quirky construction, and the skill and unflinching commitment
with which the actors invest the appalling lives of their characters with
warmth and humour, that make this a satisfying, if challenging, evening for
anyone interested in experiencing current British playwriting.
This review appears in the digital edition of "City News" from 29th March
