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Brown acid - no time wasters

Fri, 17 Apr 2009, 08:10 am
Gordon the Optom7 posts in thread
Brown Acid – no time wasters’ scripted by local prize winning writer Martin Lindsay and Brad Chester, is a Blak Yak Theatre presentation. It is being performed nightly at 8.00 pm, in The Studio at the Subiaco Arts Centre until 25th April.

         A small punk / heavy metal group are auditioning for a new bass player, when Colin (Martin Lindsay) a bass player with attitude arrives. The group’s drummer (Adam Shuttleworth) thinks that he will be suitable, but guitarist (Kristen Berry) and singer (Scott Northover) are not convinced and prefer Terry (Alex Jones). Just as the audition seems to be starting, a bunch of aging musicians, who are Metallica fans, led by Mike (Phil Barnett) and Mel (Suzy Velinovski) arrive from next door and try to tell them how to run the show.

        We see the preparation for the first gig, and the help that they get from Stu (Matt Sheedy) and his bunch of student friends. How will their first concert be received?

The cast includes several Finley Award finalists and winners, so generally the quality of acting was good, with plenty of movement and well-delivered, funny dialogue. The farce, which was directed by Nick Donald, lacked melding and the pace required a little more punch. The story line was novel and had plenty of humour, but a play about musos without a note being played felt strange.  

My honest thoughts and

Mon, 20 Apr 2009, 11:57 pm
Walter Plinge
My honest thoughts and opinions were that this show needs a lot of work. There is definite potential and a few laughs along the way but I sincerly felt that neither the cast nor the script was ready for the performance. My suggestions for improvement would be 1. start of with much MUCH more energy, taking 2 and 1/2 minutes to begin dialogue and simply busying yourself with nonsense seemed quite self-serving. 2. cut your script. a huge enormous amount of editing needs to be done. 3. generally pick up the pace especially in terms of cue pickup, (this is desperately needed if the drummers humour is to be successful). simply doing this could easily shorten the night by 15 minutes or more. I apologise if this seems harsh but as an audience member I found myself wondering whether or not to return after interval...

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