Oide
Written and Performed by Emrys Quin
Directed by Emily Farrell
“ODIE: A one-man black comedy epic for the discerning modern hooligan.
In this ‘high language, low brow’ surrealist adaptation of the Odyssey, Odie is a Queensland State of Origin hooligan stranded in Sydney at 1AM after all the trains have stopped.
Surrounded by a hostile cityscape, Odie must resist the siren calls of the pokies, charm 10ft tall sports-commentating sea monsters, and make his way back to his missus, Penny, at the Ithaca Suites.
ODIE is a vigorous, incisive, and hilarious examination of modern Australian identity, masculinity, vice, and mateship; a cultural lampooning for the discerning modern hooligan.”
I think trying to compare this to Homer is a massive stretch. Perhaps this is to do the “journey” that the main character goes on in this spoken word, monologue, one person play.
I really have to applaud the high energy level from the performance of Emrys Quin. This performance starts at 100 and stays there for the entire 55 minutes. When he was able to break character at the bows, at the end, you could see how exhausted they were, having put so much into the performance. This is obviously a subject that the writer/performer is extremely passionate about and the level of dedication and focus is to be honoured.
All that being said, this was not a show for me. Sport being the focus of the piece really turned me off. This play made me dislike sport even more so. There are still many good things about this production.
The number of rhyming couplets in simple form, compound and complex forms is absolutely astounding as a piece of written work. The darker themes about all forms of addition really brought a lot of gravitas to work and was weirdly the saving grace of chaos that was being hit at every corner.
I think the space is terrible for a performance like this. The Boom Boom room is essentially a converted office space, with a stage that looks like it would fall apart at any second, an extremely dirty, black curtain behind it, little to no proper stage lighting and no sound proofing, so that you hear everything happening from the other rooms of the other performances, that are happening at the same time. Plus, uncomfortable seating that makes you want to leave after 20 minutes. Some huge improvements could be made by Sydney Fringe Festival for this space in the future.
If you love sport and relentless high energy, this is the show for you.
To book tickets to Odie, please visit https://sydneyfringe.com/events/odie/.
