Left – Matt Minto, Geraldine Hakewill and Simon London. Photo – Helen WhiteLove Cock? Then you won't be disappointed by The Pride, the latest collaboration between director Shane Bosher and go-to gay-straight love triangle leading man, Matt Minto.
Don't think that the boys are treading theatrical water, though, since this time last year's smash hit, Cock, played at the Old Fitz.
Rather, they're diving into deeper waters, the ocean of time between 1958 and the present, contrasting and comparing the social and moral mores of the past half century, and plunging into the vast pool of human emotion that is timeless and universal.
Alexi Kaye Campbell's play deals in parallel narratives nearly sixty years apart, and adroitly uses a conceit of giving the core trio of players the same name but inhabiting vastly different space and time.
Matt Minto plays Oliver, 1958 version of a well travelled writer of children's books, private and restrained in his homosexuality while namesake 2016 version, a promiscuous dick-addicted anonymous sex fancier and commitment-phobe. His delineation and contrast between the two characters is precise and clear.
Similarly nuanced differentiations are at play in Simon London's performances of Philip. Circa 1958 he is a repressed homosexual married to Sylvia, tormented to violent extreme by his attraction to Oliver, while modern day Philip is Oliver's betrayed and baffled boyfriend, offended and affronted by Oliver's indiscriminate infidelity, flabbergasted at his flagrant promiscuity.
Geraldine Hakewill is compelling as both pre Sixties Sylvia, the epitome of stitched up poise and palpable loneliness, and the finely contrasted contemporary party girl and loyal, supportive confidant of Oliver, now ready to settle with her new Italian boyfriend and keen for Oliver and Philip to reconcile and settle too.
Kyle Kazmarzik is a revelation in a triptych of characters – fetishist role playing rent boy, hip magazine editor, and chilling aversion therapist who wants to rid 1950's Philip of his “pernicious perversion.”
Alexi Kaye Campbell’s elegant, eloquent script with it's whip-smart wit is well served by Shane Bosher’s whip-cracking direction which is sheer, sharp and clear, keeping his characters spiralling and spinning, sparring and parrying with slick stage crafted scene changes abetted by Verity Hampson's sublime lighting, conjuring a tight choreography of chaos and calm.
Played against Lucilla Smith's simple yet effective set of distressed wall, heavy black door and black tiled floor, and gorgeously costumed by Lisa Mimmocchi, The Pride is a striking production that speaks to us all about engaging in an authentic life and not playing at fancy dress. Repression, suppression, loneliness, fidelity, honesty, and the pursuit of happiness are themes that cross gender and sexuality and time.
The Pride plays The Eternity Playhouse till March 6.
Darlinghurst Theatre Company presents
THE PRIDE
by Alexi Kaye Campbell
Director Shane Bosher
Venue: Eternity Playhouse | 39 Burton StreetDarlinghurst NSW
Dates: 5 February – 6 March 2016
Tickets: $45 – $38
Bookings: www.darlinghursttheatre.com | 02 8356 9987
