Day One, A Hotel, Evening

‘Day One, A Hotel, Evening’ is a very funny, erotic ‘thriller’ by the Victorian-born, controversial playwright, Joanna Murray-Smith. All of Joanna’s sixteen plays have been first staged in Melbourne before travelling the world. Several plays have found themselves onto the School Curriculum List. Black Swan State Theatre Company as part of the City of Perth 2013 Winter Arts Season is presenting this hilarious and ingenious comedy. It can be seen at the Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre, 174, William Street, North Perth. The play lasts for 95-minutes (no interval), with performances nightly until the 30^th June.

Tracy Grant Lord’s wonderfully innovative set consist of several locations built of dark brick walls, mounted on a rotating stage. With the well positioned lighting (Matthew Marshall), the texture of the bricks was amazingly effective, possibly one of Artworkshop’s most difficult sets to build, but certainly one of their best.

The opening scene is a hotel bedroom, followed by a street scene, a restaurant, back lane, stage door, hotel corridor, office, sitting room, café etc. The stage management team of Lisa McCready and Liam Murray must have been working at a breakneck speed for the whole show, as furniture was moved in and out after rotation at the rear of the stage. Then there were all of the light fixtures and numerous props to be put in place. Great work.

       Out of the shadows steps a man in a dark trench coat, as he places his suitcase on the ground it falls open to reveal a set of pistols. As though in a crime comic, he is caught in a powerful spotlight, before a lighting blackout.

        We find ourselves in a luxury hotel bedroom where middle-aged Sam (Humphrey Bower) is rampant and about to seduce psychologist, Madeleine (Equity Best Actress Award winner Michelle Fornasier). Meanwhile, in a small café around the corner, a young, smartly dressed property developer, Tom (Matt Dyktynski) is sitting at a table with a posy of violets; it is obvious that he has been stood up by his date. On the next table, a pretty young lady, Rose (Claire Lovering) is also waiting for her tryst, who again is already very late. Soon Rose and Tom start chatting and decide to date each other.

        Lurking in the shadows is artistic painter, Stella (Roz Hammond). Stella looks like Stan Laurel, with hair erect, constantly worried and having trouble coping with the world. She decides to meet her husband’s business partner, Sam, to discuss the infidelities that she has witnessed. Acerbic Sam, with all the subtly of Paul Keating on a bad day gives her advice; but Stella, who is steaming with anger, decides the only answer is to have her husband killed. She gets in touch with a hired assassin, Ray (Jacob Allan) and asks for the ‘premium’ treatment.

         Unfortunately the infidelities and flirtations are far more complex than Stella assumed.

What a wonderful, true to life and biting script, with amazing dialogue. The number of clever threads, plot twists, puns, double-entendres and brilliant invective lines in this romp is staggering. Under skilled the direction of Peter Houghton, the play galloped along, with uproarious verbal sparring, the affairs slowly became revealed. A short ‘breathing space’ might have been nice to catch up with the events, but not surprisingly, with a cast of professional comedians; the acting and delivery were flawless. I sat open mouthed as Sam described Stella’s artistic talents, definitely a passage for the theatre memoires.

The lighting was perfectly timed to the highly dramatic style of music (Composer Ash Gibson Greig) of the genre used for many of the 70’s TV dramas. This deliberately hammy and over-the-top presentation worked well, adding more fun to the often manic situations. I felt that the script was so fast moving and rich that I may have missed many of the wonderfully clever innuendos and lines. Certainly highly recommended.