IF WE GOT SOME MORE COCAINE I COULD SHOW HOW I LOVE YOU

 

If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You  by John O’Donovan.

Directed by Joel Horwood. Produced by Jarrad West and Nikki Fitzgerald.  Jarrad West & Nikki Fitzgerald.  Set design Isaac Reilly. Sound design Neville Pye. Lighting design Lachlan Houen. Costume design Winsome Ogilvie. May 14-24. 2025 Bookings: (02)62108748

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Joshua James as Casey and Robert Kjellgren as
Mikey in If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could
Show How I Love Yoi

John O’Donovan’s debut play If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You echoes with the authenticity of personal experience. This could be because of director Joel Horwood’s detailed attention to the moments of panic, humour, conflict and love that he has carefully and imaginatively elicited from O’Donovan‘s text. It may be because of the thoroughly credible performance of the two young actors Joshua James as Casey and Robert Kjellgren as Mikey, who give such riveting and convincing performances as the two burglars, facing capture on the one hand, personal truths and admission of their true love on the other. It may also be because playwright O’Donovan has diligently observed Aristotle’s Unities. The unity of time is a few hours late at night on Halloween. The unity of place is the roof of Casey’s house. The unity of action is the developing relationship between the two young men as they reveal their predicament and the confession of their feelings for one another.

 Aristotle’s Unities provide a gripping focus to the production. In the intimate setting of the ACT HUB theatre the audience is compellingly drawn into the ninety minute play without the distraction of changing scenes, subplots or an interval. From the scrambling fearful clambering onto the roof at the start the audience is conscious of immediate drama, leavened slightly by Casey’s clown mask to disguise his face. This is a quirky romantic drama. It is also a telling social documentary about dysfunctional families and the devastating impact on the lives and hopes and dreams of Irish youth.

 

Horwood’s casting of Joshua James as the young 18 year old whose house they have burgled after an earlier bungled theft of a petrol station and Robert Kjellgren as the older, more experienced delinquent is inspired. James and Kjellgren give thoroughly convincing performances sensitively and at times explosively orchestrated by Horwood. James and Kjellgren are two of the finest young actors I have seen on the Canberra stage and I urge you to see their performances before they are certain to pursue a bright career in the theatre. James plays a London youth feeling alienated in the small Irish village and battling the abuse of his mother’s drug- dealing lover. Casey is more sensitive than the larrikin Mikey, whose rebellious and defiant nature disguises a vulnerability and need for love. It is Mikey who eventually helps Casey to admit to Mikey and to himself his homosexuality. Horwood directs these tender moments with loving appreciation of the nature of true love.

O’Donovan’s play exhibits an honesty that makes the circumstance that Casey and Mikey find themselves in entirely believable. At times we laugh at their naivety and innocence. At other times we are moved to empathise with their plight and their compulsion to be true to their feelings. Everyman Theatre has once again produced a piece of theatre that invites us to witness the human condition and consider our own place in the world.

 I close with a confession. On opening night I had difficulty understanding the text, partly because of the accents and partly because of my inability to distinguish the words. Fortunately I resolved to return and had no such trouble apart from some difficulty at times with Kjellgren’s Irish brogue. Independent theatre struggles at time with short rehearsal periods and my return affirmed the fact that the actors’ clarity of text and familiarity of playing had evolved into a first rate performance of O’Donovan’s hilarious and tender account of youthful gay love. This is a production well worth a visit.

Photos by Ben Appleton - Photox