Shorter and Sweeter 2004

It was time to catch some more theatre. I scanned the What’s On Guide and something leapt out at me. It was the Shorter and Sweeter season at the Studio theatre, Sydney Opera House.

For those not in the know, since January 2002 there has been an annual short play festival called ‘Short and Sweet’ at the Newtown theatre in Sydney. In an inspired decision, Mark Cleary, the Festival’s Artistic Director, has put together this current show which features a selection of eight favourite pieces from the canon of Short and Sweet works.

I walked into the Studio Theatre, one of the best theatre spaces in Sydney, with a positive attitude. I wasn’t going to set the bar too high, if it was an entertaining night, and at least a couple of the eight plays worked well, I’d leave as happy as Larry. It would only be if all of the plays were lousy, and the actors pranced around like lost sheep, would I go home and kick the cat!

The news is that there was no need for the cat to hide under the sofa. Sure the night was a little bit of a mixed bag, but there was good stuff in it.

One of the pieces had me in absolute stitches, and was worth the price of admission in itself. The piece was Mrinalini Kamath’s ‘The Sum of All Parts’, directed by Megan Finlay and played by Bryan Moses, Craig Anderson, and Alison Barnes.

The setting is a young woman’s living room. In through the door walks a young couple. The woman leads the guy over to the sofa. It is easy to work out what’s going on. The gal is as horny and hell but the guy keeps on keeping fending her off. It isn’t long before she asks him what’s up, is he gay and so on…The guy comes out with his problem and herein lies much of the comedy.

He tells her that the libido part of him has split from him and become another person. At this time, onto the stage walks his libido in the shape of an ugly, fat, ocker looking guy, who falls onto the sofa and starts hoeing into his takeaway muchies.

She is ofcourse aghast at seeing this part of him. Any way now that the truth has come out, the couple get down to some serious canoodling. The only thing is that when the lovemaking starts to get serious Mr Libido comes over from the sofa and wants some action. As soon as this happens she is completely turned off. A huge exercise in frustration! This was a hilarious vignette which was superbly played out.

One of the features and in fact one of the delights of ‘Shorter and Sweeter’ was its hugely varied program. Christophher Johnson’s ‘Borys the Rotweiler’ was a good comic performance piece for actor Winston Cooper . Cooper was irate Borys who was having a battle with the dogs’ next door.

Van Badham’s piece ‘An Anarchist at Dinner’, directed by Emily Weare and starring Sandie Eldridge, Rebekkah Moore, Alison Barnes, Winston Cooper and Sean Kennedy, was a quirky piece about a yuppie dinner party that goes very wrong.

The most haunting play in the collection was Alex Broun’s ‘The Gift of The Gun’ . This play was directed by George Ogilvie and was performed by Jonathon Elsom and Sean Kennedy. The scenario is a complex one. A gigolo comes to an gay old bloke’s house. He expects to perform some sexual favours and then quickly exit. Imagine his delimma when the old codger doesn’t want sexual favours but offers him a huge wad of money if he will take his gun and kill him, and he has even worked out a way of making it look like suicide, so there are no repercussions.

The suspense builds up well as the young bloke comes to the point of making his mind up. George Ogilvie’s direction was flawless. The performances were well honed, Jonathon Elson as the world weary old bloke and Sean Kennedy as the punky young guy who finds himself into something way too deep.

There was other vignette that I enjoyed. This was Jane Bodie’s ‘Through’, directed by Katy Alexander, and astutely played by Winston Cooper and Rebekkah Moore.

This play was a bit of a revelation in the way that the playwright has captured the brief history of a relationship between a man and woman with just two performers and an empty stage apart from two chairs. I particularly admired the way that Bodie didn’t write a happy ending. The couple aren’t together in the end, and the woman gives her new born child his christian name.

I found Shorter and Sweeter’s other three plays empty sort of experiences. Angus Strachan’s ‘Tea’ was strong enough thematically being about a middle aged couple having a serious discussion over tea. The wife is trying to get the husband to have the courage to bring up an issue with their grown up daughter. The husband tries to do a dance of avoidance but in the end is ensnared.

The remaining two pieces, Mark Cleary’s ‘Per Second Per Second’ about a woman jumping out of an aircraft some 3000 metres above land and coping with the thoughts racing through her mind, and Benito Di Fonzo’s ‘Pokie Face’ about a father and son taking on poker machines at an RSL Club, failed to excite.