Monogamy

What; Monogamy
Starring Cat Commander and Liam Reid (?)
Where; The Blue Room, Northbridge
When; Sat the 23rd

I know some people involved in this play and I don't really feel right reviewing it, but it has that dreadful 6:30pm slot at the Blue Room this week (Wed through Sat) and I think such a great show deserves another review (I hear Mr Banks raved about it in the Sunday Times). Also, it affected me quite deeply. I'm still thinking about it now and I have been all weekend.

You know when you were a little girl and you learnt the way the world works. That there is one person for everyone. Every Cinderella has her Prince Charming. You grow up and meet that person and fall in love and get married and have beautiful children and live happily ever after. And you know how you get into your twenties and realise someone lied to you? And that no-one told you people are fallable and flawed. And that sometimes good people do really shitty things. And that there is almost never a clear right and a clear wrong. And that love, sometimes, isn't enough.

Watching Monogamy was an emotionally devastating experience for me because it was like walking into the middle of an old relationship or an old relationship I had helped friends through. I think everyone who sees it is going to have at least traces of that feeling. Its just so amazingly real. The script could have been taken word for word from
any Australian living room (I was astounded to find the script was English) of any young co-habiting Aussie couple. The love, the loss, the betrayal and the humor all set between the domesticity of making cups of tea, not picking up your chip packets and watching the footy.

The kudos have to go to Liam (who I hardly recognised in the character at all) and Cat (who is one of these horrible women who turns from beautiful girl off stage, to glowing goddess under lights. Bitch.) for two amazing performances. At various times we dislike them both intensly, at various times we want to hug them and protect them from themselves and each other. They trod an extremely fine line between villian and victim and the show simply wouldn't have worked if either of them stepped over it. It was one of those shows that was so well performed that you didn't feel you were watching dialouge, just two people conversing.

The director, sorry I mean directION, was beautiful. The directors hand was hardly ever evident, which, I am told, is the way it's supposed to be. The charaters moved through the space and through the play with energy and pace but never looked anything other than natural. It's a static show set in a small space but it never flagged.

My one complaint was the set. I know it was designed to be detailed and real, which it certainly was, but I just thought the show didn't need it. The performances where real enough to carry an almost bare stage. In fact I think simpler setting would have showcased the actors and the script even more. But I am one of those pretentious "real theatre is performed in blacks on a blank stage" type people. None of the crowd I went with agreed with me.

However, also on the technical side, the lighting was an absolute treat, it cut the play into reality vs headspace for the characters. Without a deft hand in the lighting design and contol the whole thing may have gotten very confusing.

In short, it's just a very well directed, brilliantly performed, technically adept production of a heartbreaking and funny script. It's great. Go and see it. The last five minuets alone will provide you with coffee converstaion for weeks.