Six avaricious monomaniacs, “Delta One”, bankrupt an upstart hedge-fund on a bad bet. Up went down. High turned low. Catastrophe. Their teflon grinners-are-winners facade shatters in an inferno of recrimination and panic (a veritable Bonfire of the Vanities). Wale goddess!
Inspired by the 2008 loss of 5 billion Euro on the futures market by Jerome Kerviel, Trade is an unpolished allegory of moral and intellectual collapse. Performed on a minimalist well leveraged set, Trade establishes with some elegance a balletic reality of office cubicles and competing egos under the relentless pressure of financial gambling. But as crisis intensifies our embattled nouveau-riche exemplars show little beyond venality, despair and an expensive cocaine-habit. Absent a plot per se Trade devolves into a rat-a-touille of scenes of varying emotion and merit.
Too experimental to praise unequivocally, Trade is nonetheless acted with talent and invention. I look forward to seeing it reworked in 2016.
Hurrah Hurrah presents
Trade
created by Alison Bennett, Dymphna Carew, Alison Windsor, Naomi Livingstone and Cheyne Finn
Venue: The Old 505 Theatre | 505, 34 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills
Dates: 12 – 17 May 2015
Tickets: $33 – $2
Bookings: www.trybooking.com/HKLZ
Visit: www.hurrahhurrah.com.au
Sydney Reviews
Trade | Hurrah Hurrah
- Details
- Daniel Morgan Potts
Most read Sydney reviews
Uked! | Bondi Theatre Company
Uked! is a sing along, string along, immersive jukebox musical, that's more folksy balladeering than an all out, all that jazz razzmatazz.
Doubt | Sydney Theatre Company
Contradiction, conundrum, conflict, racism, misogyny and homophobia run through this play like a main circuit cable snaking through a moral minefield of explosive allegation.
The Lark | Hey Dowling
Noni Hazlehurst brings Rose and The Lark to colourful and compelling life in this one-woman show.
The Can Principle | Jonny Pasvolsky
Following the unedifying edict that "there's a sucker born every minute", the show skewers the modern self-improvement economy in a piss-take parody of today's 'gurus' and snake-oil salesmen.
Heartbreak Hotel | EBKM
Heartbreak Hotel invites its audience into an intimate portrait of the universal and isolating experience of heartbreak.
This rollicking musical take on Jane Austen’s beloved novel is a side-splitting crowd pleaser.
Heartbreak Hotel invites its audience into an intimate portrait of the universal and isolating experience of heartbreak.