Reality TV has invaded our television channels with increasing and worrisome popularity. The banal and domestically intrusive “Big Brother” was the talk of the ‘tea rooms’.
With obesity fast becoming an alarming reality, we now see our ‘largest members of society’ struggling to win gruelling weight loss competitions on television.
Playwright Melissa Bubnic has tackled this phenomenon with wonderful unapologetic satire and sad pathos in her latest play, BEACHED. The play won the 2010 Patrick White Award from the Sydney Theatre Company. After a season last April at the MTC, it is now playing in Sydney for the Griffin Theatre Company at its Stables Theatre.
Arthur Arthur (Arty), played with warmth and naivety by Blake Davis, is 18 years old and weighs 400 kilograms. He eats up to 33,000 calories a day and loves his cream puffs. His doting mother, JoJo, played with great comic timing by Gia Carides, lovingly feeds her son ‘comfort food’ in his bed where he is confined 24 hours a day. She then calls ‘Shocking Fat Stories’ for help, “Cause I can’t lose my boy”.
There are three video cameras on stage which document the reality TV action, shown on two screens above. Arka Das plays the ruthless TV producer who shamelessly provokes the gruesome details for the cameras with amusing and relentless energy.
Arty and JoJo agree to participate in the reality show in exchange for his all-expenses-paid gastric bypass surgery. We, the audience, see the reality and the reality TV show throughout the play. It’s a clever format that works really well.
They bring in Louise, the Centrelink Pathways to Work Officer, (played engagingly by the talented Kate Mulvany). She endears herself to Arty and recognises their mutual mathematical abilities. When she gets too close to Arty, JoJo gets worried and wants to stop the surgery.
The countdown begins and the play speeds up to its conclusion.
A clever set has been designed by James Browne which effortlessly incorporates the video cameras and moving circular padded bed that engulfs Arty.
The play is beautifully directed by Shannon Murphy who brings out the best in the stellar cast. She emphasises the point of the play, and says, “..reality TV, an industry that has made fortunes out of the physical misfortunes of others. Reality TV feeds off people’s insecurities and their natural human instinct to be nosy, glimpsing something we know we shouldn’t be witnessing.”
BEACHED is a well-crafted play that gets to the heart of human weakness and exposes the vulnerable.
BEACHED plays at the Stables Theatre, Darlinghurst until August 31.