SAUCE BY CIARA ELIZABETH SMYTH

 

 

Ashleigh Butler and Claire Imlach in Sauce

Sauce by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth.

Directed by Christopher Samuel Carroll. Barewitness Theatre Company. Smith’s Alternative Upstairs. Bookings: www.barewitnesstheatre.com/sauce.ember 11-15 2024.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Christopher Samuel Carroll
Director of Sauce

Keep your eyes out for emerging Canberra actors Ashleigh Butler who plays Mella and Claire Imlach who is Moira in Ciara Elizabeth Smyth’s Sauce. If their performances are anything to judge by, these two Canberra Youth theatre alumni could be Australian TV’s next comedy duo in the tradition of Kath and Kim or Brtain’s Edwina and Patsy. Their comedic timing is absolutely fabulous. Their “lokk at moi” character changes are slick and snappy. Irish writer Smyth dishes up a saucy diet of rapid-fired wit with a palatable serving of food for thought. By the end of the play Smyth’s delicious menu of issues has ladelled out Mella’s compulsive lies and Moira’s gluttonous kleptomania with a heaped side plate of guilt. Mella’s alcoholic grandmother has died and her Great Uncle Paddy (Imlach) decides to evict Mella. Moira wakes to find her husband Phil (Butler) having sex with a blonde alongside Moira. Mella visits the sleazy solicitor (Imlach) to try and contest the will. Moira is plagued by her big-mouthed work colleague Siobhan (Butler). Both women end up at a swimming slimming club and form an unlikely friendship.

Director Christopher Samuel Carroll is Irish and obviously makes the most of catering for  Smyth’s wicked sense of humour.  Carroll is also a graduate of the Le Coq school of mask and movement and he imbues his actors with a sharply defined sense of physical comedy. Barewitness Theatre strips back the artifice. In the new upstairs venue of Smith’s Alternative the setting is unadorned except for a large Persian rug on a slightly raised platform of stage blocks against a red wall. Butler and Imlach alone inhabit the space with performances garnished with a rich source of comedy and topped with a dose of honest pathos and new-found friendship.

If laughter is the best medicine, then Sauce is the sweetener and friendship the elixir to combat the unpalatable taste of unhealthy body image, infidelity, loneliness and sexual harassment to name but a  few of the unsavoury additives in Mella and Moira’s lives. Sauce is salivating good fun. It’s clever, extremely funny, wonderfully played by two rising comedy performers and directed with flair and flavour.

Sauce is only playing until December 15^th so Canberrans will need to be quick to catch the show before it moves to Melbourne’s Butterfly Club from the 18^th. to the 21^st. It’s the ideal Christmas treat with a full diet of rib-tickling comedy and some thought-provoking morsels on the side. Highly recommended!

Photos by Michelle Higgs