Sydney Reviews

Darlinghurst Theatre’s Andy Hyman double-bill purports to be ‘two sharp comedies exploring love, lust and transformation’. In his director’s notes John Kachoyan writes that the two plays offer ‘a return to the simpler, some say, forgotten pleasures of the theatre.’ Unfortunately for Kachoyan and Darlinghurst Theatre, these plays are neither especially sharp nor nostalgic. While neither play is terribly bad, both are ultimately insubstantial.

Drake the Amazing is about Alden Drake (Scott Sheridan), a performer of dramatic monologues in a travelling company in the early twentieth century, who becomes a one-night superstar after the fruition of his romance with company secretary Claudette (Kate Skinner). Andrew Johnston turns in a noteworthy performance as comic Astor and the physical interactions between Drake and Claudette create moments of slapstick-esque comedy. Adrienn Lord’s set design, featuring a raised stage and wonderfully luscious red velvet curtains, is also worthy of mention, as this design, more than anything else, is evocative of the time period in which the play is set, imbuing the play with a sort of old-world charm.

However, Drake the Amazing is, overall, tepid. Good scenes and pieces of sharp writing were overshadowed by unnecessary fluff, and the desire to keep the play going at a break-neck pace often meant that the humour that was there was obscured. The person sitting next to me actually fell asleep in a few places, and while I don’t want to attribute this wholly to the play, the fact that it ultimately fell pretty flat probably didn’t help.

Hyman’s adaptation of Marivaux’s La Dispute was a different sort of play. While Drake the Amazing didn’t aspire to be more than a vaguely charming nostalgic comedy, La Dispute explicitly opened with a question – who cheated first, man or woman? It so happens that two of the four characters discussing this question have a handy-dandy social experiment up their sleeves to explore the possible answers, and so the play begins.

Leaving aside the heteronormativity implicit in the question about which gender is more prone to cheating, the sweeping generalisations made by this play about the natures of men and women were not particularly endearing. The four characters who were part of the experiment had never been exposed to any real human society, and thus their reactions became universally true. The two women were jealous of each other and disliked each other, and so all women are like this. The two men bonded and became ‘bros’, and so all men are like this. If Hyman had used Marivaux’s 1744 prose tract as a basis from which to critique these assumptions, then La Dispute could have been a very powerful piece of theatre. Sadly, I didn’t see this happening at all – the four characters in the experiment, despite their individual personalities, were still placeholders for ‘men’ and ‘women’, and I felt that this was a major flaw. If the play was attempting to provoke its audience to thought, it might have done well to turn its gaze inward first.

These criticisms made, La Dispute did feature some sharp writing and a few real laugh-out-loud moments. Kachoyan’s direction used the space at Darlinghurst in a very clever way and the play included some very fine performances, particularly from Polita Cameron as Adine and Carl Batchelor as Azor. (Zoe Carides was completely wasted in the nothing-role of Carise – I really would have liked to have seen more of her.)

Overall, however, the good performances, design and moments of clever writing could not save La Dispute from being philosophically confusing and confused and Drake the Amazing from being lukewarm escapism. This Andy Hyman double bill was entertaining, but, in the end, unsatisfying.


Michaela Kalowski and Owl Farm, in partnership with Darlinghurst Theatre Company, present
DRAKE THE AMAZING + LA DISPUTE
by Andy Hyman

Directed by John Kachoyan

Venue: Darlinghurst Theatre | 19 Greenknowe Ave, Potts Point, Sydney
Dates: 20 July – 14 August 2011
Tickets: Adult $37 | Concession $32
Bookings: www.darlinghursttheatre.com | 02 8356 9987