New Directions- Week 4- Double Bill

Newtown’s New Theatre concluded its New Direction program with two fast paced cutting edge plays that take a hard hitting, confronting look at some of the different ways life can be lived in contemporary society.

A scene from Richter’s ‘Electronic City’. Pic by Bob Seary

The evening started with German playwright Falk Richter’s play ‘Electronic City’. In ‘Electronic City’ two young people, Tom and Joy, meet at an airport lounge, fighting over who would get the last ticket on a flight soom to leave for Berlin. They are arrested and briefly locked up together. They discover that they have feelings for each other, and as they go on and lead their separate and chaotic lives, they strive to find the time to spend time together

Richter’s play incisively portrays a world where everyone is stressed out, where no-one has any spare time, and as the play’s title suggests, where people are at the mercy of amongst other things, computers, mobile phones, scanners, in short, the electronic city.

The piece was well directed by Ngaire O’Leary, with good performances by the leads, Felix Joseps as the super stressed consultant, Tom, and Megan Holloway as the cute, ditzy Joy.

Doug Hansell as the grotesque Fatboy. Pic- Bob Seary

After a twenty minute the grotesque Fatboy and his monstrous wife, Queen Fudgie the First stormed the stage in American playwright John Clancy’s razor sharp political satire, ‘Fatboy’. There are still some tyrants that walk this earth, and Clancy’s portrait sends chills up the spine.

The scenario has Fatboy and Fudgie standing trial for war crimes, and despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the court refuses to convict Fatboy and succumbs to his bullying tactics.

Clancy’s play takes us deep into the dark, brutish world of charismatic tyrants. Director Scott Selkirk created an eerie, darkly comic experience with Dynae Wood’s make-up and Talina Cruz’s costume very much coming to the fore. Doug Hansell and Jennifer White were in great form as the mocking couple.

The Double Bill of Richter’s ‘Electronic City’ and Clancy’s ‘Fatboy’ played the New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown between the 4th and the 7th August, 2010.