One of Australia’s finest actors, Henri Szeps, performed his latest his latest play, ‘Why Kids’, at the Ensemble theatre. Szeps is one of the Ensemble’s favorite sons, being one of its early graduates, under the tutorage of the late Hayes Gordon.
‘Why Kids’ was a play that Szeps had work-shopped through various venues around the state. It follows up his previous autobiographical one man play- ‘I’m not a Dentist’.
With ‘I’m not a Dentist’ Szeps focused on his career, in ‘Why Kids’ Szeps concentrates on his other preoccupation, family life.

The plays’ recipe is a simple one, Szeps mixes his numerous anecdotes with musical breaks, with Szeps taking over the microphone and singing to taped music.
The verdict…well..I had mixed feelings.
I love Szeps as a performer. He is a great raconteur with an ability to reel an audience in with his warmth and charm. ‘Why Kids’ was always going to be a warm, entertaining night.
The stories are good stories. Undoubtedly he has had an interesting life. He had a tumultuous early childhood in war-torn Europe, starting life as an orphan in Switzerland. He grew up as a migrant in Australia, completed an engineering degree and then became smitten by the acting bug. The rest of the story kind of told itself.
Szeps revealed himself as something of a homespun philosopher. Interestingly he spoke about using his acting experiences to come up with the deeper truths in his life. One of the insights that Hayes Gordon taught his students was that what happened on stage was all about the characters making actions towards each other.
He spoke about this theatrical convention in the context of a real life crisis he had with his teenage son.
He spoke about how his son had, so to speak, turned off him. It deeply concerned Szeps, and he became very introspective. He said he found the answer when he looked at the actions that he had been making towards Amos that had been very negative and critical, and when he changed his actions to a more positive, giving note, his son came around for him.

Szeps’s musical interludes worked, well sort of… They successfully complemented the string of anecdotes. He has an average voice that worked ok. The song choices were pretty ordinary with standard ballads. At least, there was the great Michele Legrand tune ‘Windmills of your mind’ in there. And the songs did tie in with the narrative of the play, ending with the great song ‘What a wonderful world’.
Summing up, ‘Why Kids’ was by no means any work of art, and at times it was a little cloying, yet it was a warm, entertaining evening in the theatre.