Utopiate.
Co-directed by Ben
Drysdale and Sammy Moynihan. Assistant director Melissa Gryglewski. Sound
design Marléné Claudine Radice. A Rebus Theatre and Belco Arts Production, The Theatre. Belconnen Arts Centre. November
4,5 and 12. 2022
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
“They make me so proud.’ co-director
Ben Drysdale said to me as I was leaving Belconnen Theatre after the opening
night of Rebus Theatre’s Utopiate. And so
he should be. If the aim of theatre is to make a difference and bring about
change, then Rebus Theatre is its standard
bearer. Drysdale and co-director Sammy Moyniham have worked for months with a
cast of mixed ability to create a show that is both funny and insightful with
considerable appeal by a cast and crew who possess the ability to see the world
through a different lens. Utopiate is a work that compels an
audience to see the world differently. It invites an audience to discover new
possibilities and make choices that open the way to positive change.
In 1516 Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor
to Henry Vlll, wrote
Utopia, his
vision of an imaginary perfect world. Was it satire or a serious social
experiment? Rebus Theatre has cleverly spun a satirical
slant on the Utopian concept.
Utopiate is a pain free planetary opiate
where Grand Master Thorax Mansion (Sam Floyd) has invited the suffering
Earthlings to leave their mundane world of repetitive routine and painful
ailments for the stress free world of
Utopiate. In a sales pitch reminiscent of television marketing four
Earthlings are invited to leave Earth and discover true happiness and pain free
heaven on Thorax’s Paradise. Here with the aid of his minions Mars Bar (Megumi
Kawada), Purple Raindrop (Zoe Trevorrow), and Silver Star (Stephen Perkins)
Thorax can cure the aches and pains that plague Tom (Josh Rose), the stress
that bedevils
Environmentalist Elsa
Whitney (Carol-Jayne ‘CJ” McManus), the invading thoughts of Gestalt Therapist
Crystal Hart (Leanne Shutt) and Depressive Mitchell King (Edward ‘Woody’
Menzies).
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Sam Floyd as Thorax Mansion in Utopiate
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However Rebus Theatre is not in
the business of false panaceas. The company’s cast and crew
live in the real world, a world of challenges
and difference. Theirs is the art of connectivity, reaching out to an audience
and opening their eyes and hearts to alternative possibilities. Thorax’s
Paradise offers a flawed solution to pain relief and Rebus Theatre’s
Utopiate extrapolates a universal truth
within the quest for perfection . And so, like every good story there is a
moral that rings true – to overcome pain and suffering it is necessary to
embrace change. This is Rebus Theatre’s raison d’etre to effect change through
the empowerment
of theatre
. Utopiate is not theatre of sophistication. It is
simple, but not simplistic, honest but not condescending and instructive though
not didactic. The performances, assisted by the projection of the text and the
presence of an Auslan interpreter are aurally enhanced by Marléné Claudine
Radice’s evocative sound design, Stephen Rose’s lighting and Fi Hopkins’ and
Leah Ridley’s costume designs.
If you have never seen a Rebus
Theatre production and of course if you have then Utopiate is must see theatre, not because this hour long satire
will satisfy conventional expectation
but because it alters one’s perception of our world and how we confront life’s challenges and experience. Utopiate is comical and serious, heart-warming
and entertaining. And a show of which Rebus Theatre can be truly proud.
Photos by Andrew Sikorski
