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It’s Only A Play – Pymble Players arrive at The Zenith Theatre

15 March 2025 Linda Lokhee

It’s Only A Play Rating

★★★★★

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It’s evening in a New York townhouse. Plush pillows adorn the bed, and the room furniture’s white colour palette portrays understated luxury. Jazz plays as the audience is seated. I loved the director and set designer Joy Sweeney’s selection of extra-long curtains, which gave the set a high ceiling and confirmed the architecture of an upper-class Manhattan residence.
This is a room of affluence and perhaps also influence.

Terrence McNally’s It’s Only A Play could be set in any era, but it’s soon clear from the references to Broadway musicals mentioned that it’s set in the present day. We join a group of creatives (and a coat check boy) after the opening night of playwright Peter Austin’s (Nick Roberts) play named “The Golden Egg”. What “The Golden Egg” is about remains a mystery for the entirety of the play, but it doesn’t matter. What matters to these characters is how it is received by Broadway’s top theatre critics. McNally’s play shows how powerful the weight of a good or bad theatre review can affect the future of a production and the survival of some theatre venues.

This is a comedy with many big characters, oversized personalities, and even larger egos. James Wicker (played with self-centred relish by Ross Alexander) is Peter’s best friend who has come to support Peter on his big night. James had previously turned down Peter’s offer to play a character in his play, instead choosing the path of acting in a long-running series on television. Was he viewed as a sellout as he swapped over to television? It was interesting to see how Ross portrayed friendship with his character’s feelings of jealousy over casting, and the interaction between he and Peter with unfavourable comparisons being made between being a Broadway theatre actor and a television series actor.

Gus (Cameron Drake) the wannabe actor, delivers a light hearted distraction whilst everyone waits for the reviews to come in. He brings several coats into the room, ceremoniously announcing who they belong to, and dumps them on the bed, which gains a lot of laughs from the audience. Many coats have their own recognisable star factor, including coats from Les Miserables, Cats, Hamilton and Joseph and the Technicolour Coat. There’s even a musical nod to Wicked performed by Gus.

Heather Pitt’s character Virginia Noyes has a feisty ‘tell-em-how-it-is’ spunk. Virginia starred in Peter’s play that night and eagerly waits to see how her return to the stage is received. Her retelling of a certain dance onstage due to an ankle monitor was funny.

Julia Budder, played by Cassandra Gorman, is the producer of “The Golden Egg”. She decided to back Peter’s play and brings hope to the room, as well as a certain fragility. Clive Hobson’s character Ira Drew is a harsh film critic. He throws a barb at Peter: “I like you personally, it’s your play I can’t stand” is one insulting comment, amongst many others.

Tim Wotherspoon, who plays the director of “The Golden Egg” Frank Finger, is a standout. Frank Finger is a flamboyant, sensitive and dramatic character, full of hair tosses and bouts of kleptomania. His highly successful previous projects prompted a potential imposter syndrome line “I need a flop!”. The dramatics with his ‘invisible cloak’ (a nod to Harry Potter perhaps?) had the audience laughing.

Director Joy Sweeney has successfully led The Pymble Players’ first performance into their new performance theatre venue – The Zenith Theatre in Chatswood. Congratulations to The Pymble Players on their opening night.

Finally, what did the theatre critic Ben Brantley from The New York Times and other theatre critics have to say about “The Golden Egg”? No spoilers here – the second act is filled with the characters’ reactions, so you’ll have to see it to find out!

It’s Only a Play performances:

14 March 2025 – 22 March 2025.
Tickets: $35 Concession Card holders $30

To book tickets to It’s Only A Play, please visit www.pymbleplayers.com.au/its-only-a-play.

Photographer: Daniel Ferris

This review also appears on It’s On The House. Check out more reviews at Whats The Show to see what else is on in your town.

Linda Lokhee

Improbable Fiction: A Comedic Delight

9 February 2025 Isobel Knight

Improbable Fiction Rating

★★★★★

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There’s something specifically delightful about a farce with a lot of heart. Castle Hill Player’s production of Alan Ayckbourn’s ’Improbable Fiction’ has a charming ensemble cast, a Shakespearean change-maker of a storm, and several comic surprises that had the house in stitches.

Jem Rowe is warm and funny as our anchoring host Arnold Hassock. The characters he welcomes to the house he shares with his aging mother bemuse and enthral him (and the audience) in turn. This is a show for you if you’re interested in writing and the oddball folks who do it.

Abby Bishop’s set, in concert with Mark Dawson’s lighting design, is incredibly effective and is the key support for good actors working with a good script. They’ve created a little world that it was a delight to fall into for the night, and Alan Ayckbourn’s skill with words is shepherded effectively by director Dave Went.

Leone Sharp’s costume design is excellent, and the pace of some of the changes was very impressive. Each detail gave richness to the whirl of the second act. Some of the prop work drew gasps and cheers from the audience and facilitatedsome of the big surprises and delights across the show.

The second act swings at quite a different pace to the first and gives the ensemble more space to stretch their muscles. Anthea Brown is a comic highlight throughout, and the whole cast embodies Gina Willison’s choreography with verve. Brendan Iddles enters last in the first act, and has some of the stand-out moments in the second; his transformations are some of the most striking. Will Shipp drew out some of the most vocal audience responses, and Lauren Asten-Smith’s characters (and late second act reveal) were all some of the strongest emotionally connected moments in the scheme of the comedy of the show.

George Cartledge’s sound design is, like the set, effective and integrated, with musical moments and audio gags all landing. The storm he created was one of the key elements of the plot, and the design and delivery was seamless. The mood-setting musical moments were effective enough to situate you instantly without feeling repetitious, and Jem Rowe was particularly good at working with them to carry the audience along through all the different twists and turns of the show.

For this reviewer, the second act was the highlight, but all the threads that ran through from first-act conversations really did add to the story. There’s a lot to love and laugh along with in this show, and the cast and crew have put on a lovely production of a fun piece. There is more wordplay the more you look, and plenty of clowning and character comedy besides, so I would recommend catching this show while it’s on.

To book tickets to Improbable Fiction, please visit https://paviliontheatre.org.au/improbable-fiction/

This review also appears on It’s On The House. Check out more reviews at Whats The Show to see what else is on in your town.

Isobel Knight

Karate Man – A Brilliantly Clever Interactive Live Action Comedy

19 September 2024 Linda Lokhee

Karate Man Rating

★★★★★

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If you have ever played a video game, you’d feel the excitement of pressing a combination of different buttons on the controller and moving your character around the screen – to fight villains, explore different rooms and make decisions. The game always has a goal, often several, with riddles and various quests to complete before the goals are met, before you finally win the game. Perhaps it has taken hours to play. Imagine this. You know what I mean. Now think about the characters jumping out of the screen and are standing right now in front of you, swaying from one foot to the other, patiently waiting for you to give them a command on your controller. Your game has come to life – and you get to make decisions about what happens next. This is what happens in this comedic show Karate Man.

Co-creators and directors Bruno Dubosarsky and Daniel Scarratt have produced a truely unique and hilarious interactive play…and play we did! All audience members participated and became immersed into the story, by taking turns with the controller and pushing buttons, directing Karate Man to do what they wanted in response to the story’s many challenges.

The buttons were typical gaming commands such as kick, throw, punch, jump, grab as well as move left / right/ down and up, all of which Karate Man had to do immediately on command as soon as the it was read out by the game’s narrator. The sound effects added to the authenticity of a video game, complete with repeating sounds when the characters were waiting to be directed what to do.

This video game character was portrayed perfectly by Bruno Dubosarsky and done with such robotic fluidity that it was believable, his movements imitating the basic gaming commands of the 1980’s video games. As you can imagine, the fight between Karate Man, moving in a step by step controlled fashion (eg “right, right, jump, right, kick. Left, left, down, punch”) and his arch enemy Ross Roundkick, played with cheeky wickedness by Daniel Scarratt in the year 198X was hilarious and one of the highlights of the show for me. I was laughing so much as poor Karate Man was directed to move in ridiculous excess due to the audience still getting used to using the controls at the beginning of the show – it would have been exhausting for Bruno. At one stage, Karate Man was directed by the controller “left, left, left, left, left” right off the stage – the audience was crippled with laughter! I had never been to a Choose Your Own Adventure show like this before, and I loved it.

The story of Karate Man takes us into the lives of Karate Man and his wife Kara. Her name being half of his name seemed to be on purpose, and added to the cheesy charm of the show. Kara was played by Stephanie Ryan and her mannerisms of a video game character were spot on. Karate Man had to complete some challenges in this game and the audience was given three choices which led to different scenes and more goals to achieve. As the audience were making the decisions about where Karate Man was going to go next in our rendition of the play, I could see how the show would completely change on different nights. It would be interesting to return to experience another scenario and set of goals.

The supporting cast, Tim Dunk as the Time Fish, Juliet Rae Timmerman as Alex Coober and Maddie Atkins lent keen exaggeration into their video game characters and were very entertaining. All of the actors at different times were so funny, and I believe that some lines may have been impromptu.

The script was clever and contained some references to pop culture embedded. Prop designer Stephanie Ryan kept the stage simple. A few painted large posters were used, as well as a few other props, and was all this show needed as it was more reliant on the physical comedy and the script.

Shown as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival 2024, Karate Man was spectacularly funny and one of the most original interactive shows to hit the stage! Instead of playing video games at home, head out to the PACT Centre for Emerging Artists in Erskineville to have your own personalised adventure with Karate Man.

Show run: 17-21 September 2024
Tickets: $30 – $38
www.sydneyfringe.com/events/karate-man-a-live-action-video-game

This review also appears on It’s On The House. Check out more reviews at Whats The Show to see what else is on in your town.

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