Discharge *** 1/2

Matt Penny’s new play ‘Discharge’ is showing at the Blue Room Studio, Northbridge until Saturday 30^th September at 9.00 pm.

The show starts with a warm-up Claymation video. This short is made in the style of ‘Wallace and Grommet’ and is called ‘The dog that farts fire’. The very funny, well-produced piece, made by Matt, shows among other things what is really behind the scenes of the Australia Day fireworks display.

The next sketch is about two hospital orderlies (Matt Penny and Joshua Crane) having to clean a toilet that has more shit on it than can be produced by three vindaloos. They talk about the different types of shit and their sources. There were lots of cringing groans from the audience as they laughed heartily, then for some reason the ‘f-word’ and the ‘c word’ appeared several times in this comic act, quite unnecessarily, and this killed the sketch. Am I a prude? This language wasn’t as frequently employed in a rough and threatening film like ‘Last train to Freo’. A pity.

There then followed a Claymation scene based in a hospital ward. The script was funny, the puppets and the sets had humour and the technique and skill employed was well above average and worth watching – but – the voices were put onto the action by actors standing in front of the screen, a major distraction to the action and the storyline. Why not simply use a voice-over microphone?

Next we eavesdropped on the hospital’s two gardeners, sorry groundsmen (Kingsley Judd and Michael Rae), as they had their tea break.  A different genre again, a good script with an unexpected twist, very well carried off with plenty of subtle humour from both actors.

In the next scene, a doctor had been called to see the Hospital Administrator about a serious event observed on the hospital’s security video. Helen Burgess was excellent as the official, determined to get to the bottom of the misdemeanour, whilst the errant doctor (Peter Clark) who started with a ‘what’s your problem?’ attitude soon broke down to a near suicidal state. A tremendous piece of acting from Peter.

Nurses have all the knowledge to kill patients as well as save them – but what is more rewarding? Nurse, Summer Williams, gave an explanation of euthanasia so convincing that my elderly relatives should beware.

Then these four completely different genres are all cut and intermixed together. This broke the flow. I am sorry to be hard on this show as it was a lot of fun. It had great ideas, tackled with new approaches, was innovating in the staging, but in the end left me a little confused and frustrated.

Great lighting from Steve Warren

If Matt, who is obviously very talented at many levels, worked with a partner off whom he could bounce ideas and help him hone the script, then this could be a superb show. I look forward to his next show.