Left – Chloe Bayliss. Photo – Kate WilliamsThe normally lean fare presented at the Old Fitzroy has gone the way of the world with its Super Size production of The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter, a tale of morbid obesity and Mormonism.
In a squalid apartment in Idaho with drab dabs of nautical décor – a fish tank, a painting of a lighthouse, louvre blinds redolent of a ship's sails or fish gills – English tutor, Charlie, is slowly eating himself to death.
Suicide by stuffing is his response to the death of his lover, Alan, and Alan's sister, Liz, pops in from time to time to aid and abet his catastrophic calorie intake.
Moribund and housebound, Charlie makes money by mentoring students on line. The study of Moby Dick takes a prominent focus, specifically one essay that seems to have resuscitative power.
Another whale story, the Biblical one of Jonah, is also prominent, conjured by an impromptu visit of a nineteen year old Mormon missionary, who interrupts Charlie while masturbating to movie dick.
Busted wanking notwithstanding, Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, its minions and ministries is somewhat of a bete noire to Charlie and of Liz also, as they both blame the institution for being implicit in Alan's death, shaming and shunning him for being gay.
Not so impromptu is the visit from Ellie, Charlie's daughter. After an estrangement of more than a decade, he has tracked her down via Facebook, and summoned her to his abode in an attempt at a reconciliation.
In the wake of this, Mary, Charlie's ex wife and mother to Ellie, enters the scene, making for a tidy final farewell as the beached whale prepares to blow his last.
Keith Agius, fitted out in unflattering fat suit, does an admirable job as the morbidly obese Charlie, grasping the posture and the short, shallow gasping of the grossly corpulent, negotiating the complex contradiction of the jolly fat man who harbours a dietary death wish.
Meredith Penman similarly has to navigate the contradictory character of Lizzie, the sister of his deceased lover and now his domestic who strives to keep him alive whilst simultaneously feeding him foods that will prove fatal, either by consumption or by choking. Her emotional conflict is well compassed, however she seems ill at ease with the cigarettes she is required to smoke; vile, heinous smelling herbal fags that cause quite a stench. Note to audience front rowers: proximity to smoke and projectile food propelled by clearing air passages could be perilous.
Chloe Bayliss as the daughter, Ellie, is quite the attitude of insolent youth, a fearless ferocity masking a fragility, a forced bravado a veneer to a brittle soul, and adopts the surly facade of a face the facsimile a slapped arse.
Alex Beauman, at first the epitome of the gormless missionary reveals a genuine earnestness that eschews the shallow evangelism of his church.
Hannah Waterman as Mary, Charlie's ex and mother of Ellie, comes late in the play but gives a scene stealing, heartbreaking performance, of a woman spurned of success as spouse and parent, finding validity in vodka. There's a seething, shaking anger on view here, the kind that comes from still caring although won is clearly care-worn.
The play, like its protagonist, is overweight, and the production is plagued by a barrage of blackouts and a lighting design that is scrappy. So too the sound scape – confused, unclear and cliched.
One or two too many vignettes slow its metabolic rate. But it largely swims thanks to a committed cast who give big. Like Minnie the Moocher's heart. Big as a whale.
Red Line Productions presents
THE WHALE
by Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Shane Anthony
Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre, 129 Dowling Street (Cnr Cathedral Street), Woolloomooloo
Dates: 2 February – 4 March 2016
Tickets: $40 – $30
Bookings: www.oldfitztheatre.com/the-whale
Part of the 2016 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
