Left – Helen Thomson and Greg Stone. Cover – Greg Stone. Photos – Brett Boardman Grotesque and misanthropic, Taylor Mac's Hir is identifiable as Theatre of Cruelty complete with repetitive projectile vomiting, piercing sound, public pissing, and bright stage lighting.
A stroke victim, Arnold, is metaphorically cuckolded and abused, forced to wear clown make-up, a dress and diaper, relegated to repose in a cardboard box, a revenge for years of domestic violence.
This humiliation is meted out by the victim's wife, Paige, whose other hobby is trans-parenting her transitioning daughter Max from female to male. So Paige is caught between administering unsuitable pharmaceutical to an infantile middle aged man and administering transubstantiation boosters to a female maturing into a man.
As if raging teenage hormones aren't enough to deal with in the hetero-normative universe, the administration of testosterone to the maturing, transitioning Max creates an even more querulous, surly, superiority complex addled adolescent. These supplements are colloquially known as “mones”, and, by perverted Pygmalia, that is a perfectly coined abbreviation.
As Paige pumps her daughter with testosterone, she gaily pumps her invalid husband with oestrogen. Moans all round.
More moans. Enter Isaac, Paige and Arnold's elder son, recently dishonourably discharged from the US Marine Corps for anal drug abuse. He is horrified by his father's humiliation and draws up battle lines against his monstrous mother, seeking to turn Max's allegiance.
Helen Thomson plays Paige with furious and forensic aplomb, a harping harridan with a haranguing tongue, a Mommy Dearest domestic Dr. Moreau. Greg Stone is playfully pathetic as the emasculated and manipulated Arnold. Kurt Pimblett is transcendent as Max, supercilious, provocative, churlish. Michael Whalley is superb as the prodigal son, Isaac, who joined the military as a ticket out of the family, only to return to find a home even more dysfunctional than the one he left.
Michael Hankin's set and costume design is a triumph of chaos and decay.
From its transmogrifying curtain drop beginning to its tawdry, tragic finale, Hir may not be transformative, it does have the ability to transfix.
Belvoir presents
Hir
byTaylor Mac
Director Anthea Williams
Venue: Upstairs Theatre | Belvoir St Surry Hills NSW
Dates: 12 August - 10 September 2017
Bookings: belvoir.com.au | 02 9699 3444
