Tag Archives: bite productions

Review: Porpoise Pool (25A Belvoir)

Posted in Theatre by

Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Jun 1 – 18, 2023
Playwright: Jojo Zhou
Director: Eve Beck
Cast: Meg Clarke, Jane Mahady, Luke Leong-Tay, Loretta Kung, Carlos Sanson Jr
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review

Lou is a mess, living in a rundown apartment and unable to keep a job. Granted she is only in her very early 20s and has lots of time to figure things out. However as a mother of a small child, the pressure is on for her to get her act together. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Lou has an artificial intelligence assistant device at home, a device referred to as House, who zealously offers assistance with anything Lou might need, including its highly questionable form of psychotherapy.

Jojo Zhou’s Porpoise Pool is an idiosyncratic work, with quirky humour and surrealist elements that cleverly express its central anxieties. The play is consistently fascinating, full of charm and creativity, and it gradually elicits our investment in its imperfect hero, even though the text may require some editing to tighten the journey. Direction by Eve Beck places emphasis on the funny and bizarre dimensions of the show, to deliver something satisfying in its unconventionality.

A set by Soham Apte, along with costumes by Lily Mateljan, address the slightly off-kilter quality of Lou’s world, just theatrical enough to provide a sense of elevation, without ever being too on the nose. Tyler Fitzpatrick’s lights and Clare Hennesy’s sounds are impressive with the level of detail they deliver, to subtly shape our focus and our responses, to a show that switches gear regularly, and elegantly.

Actor Meg Clarke turns Lou’s deficiencies into great entertainment. She is completely believable, with an extraordinary instinct, effortless in her ability to make every line of dialogue and every gesture, seem meaningful and captivating. The supporting cast comprises Jane Mahady, Luke Leong-Tay, Loretta Kung and Carlos Sanson Jr, all of whom embrace the unique tone of Porpoise Pool, for a show that is simultaneously thoughtful and wonderfully weird.

Lou is never more aware of her faults, than when faced with her responsibilities as a parent. There is no question about her lack of readiness for motherhood, but it can certainly be considered true, that no person will ever be sufficiently prepared for that experience. It is fanciful to say that Lou should not have gone through with her unplanned pregnancy, because people every where every day, birth babies in imperfect situations, and will continue to do so. We want perfect parents to have perfect offspring, but the truth is that, we can only ever be human.

https://www.facebook.com/biteprod | www.belvoir.com.au

Review: Whose Uterus Is it Anyway? (The Old 505 Theatre)

Posted in Theatre by

Venue: Old 505 Theatre (Newtown NSW), Oct 30 – Nov 10, 2018
Playwright: Georgie Adamson
Director: Eve Beck
Cast: Toby Blome, Alexandra Morgan, Finn Murphy, Chelsea Needham, Annie Stafford
Images by Jasmin Simmons

Theatre review
It is a game show in the reality competition style, involving the infliction of humiliation and abuse for the benefit of a television audience. In this case, contestants are made to jump through hoops before they are awarded the reproductive health care that they require. George Adamson’s Whose Uterus Is It Anyway? is an indictment of the way bodies of women and trans men are controlled, relegated to a lower class, when they deviate from unreasonably strict norms. When a uterus is not being used for procreation, society sees fit that its owner is put through a process of castigation, as enacted here by a white man in a stylised lab coat, playing the role of game show host, manipulating scenarios and exercising his power, to ridicule his subjects.

Ideas in the play are fresh and exciting, assembled with an enjoyable quirky humour. Its writing could be further refined for a more satisfying plot structure, but its unique approach makes for a show that is at once pertinent and amusing. Eve Beck’s direction for the piece contains appropriately subversive measures, and although its comedy proves slightly inconsistent, there is no doubting the production’s ability to have us firmly engage with its stimulating themes. Martin Kinnane’s lights and Camille Ostrowsky’s set design provide dynamism to a visual aesthetic that conveys effectively, the sinister quality of institutionalised medicine and media. Alex Lee-Rekers is detailed with his work on sound, helping us navigate the many subtle tonal and emotional shifts of the show.

An excellent cast brings to life the theatrical and substantive absurdity of Whose Uterus Is It Anyway?. Toby Blome is captivating as the central authority figure, and as four additional subsidiary characters, his efforts are just as compelling. Alexandra Morgan and Annie Stafford are funny women, both exuberant and incisive with their delivery. Finn Murphy and Chelsea Needham dial up the poignancy factor, for some genuinely moving moments that give the staging a crucial quotient of gravity.

As evidenced in Lysistrata’s fabled sex strike, societies have always been petrified of women using their bodies for anything other than gestation. The impulse to reproduce has fuelled an unquenchable thirst to control our bodies, and as a consequence all of how we exist is dictated in accordance with that sense of ownership and entitlement. Three women in the play, along with a trans man, have made decisions for themselves, but it is clear that their bodies are being held hostage, by traditions and systems that struggle to acknowledge our independence. If our subjugation stems from sex and babies, it would only make sense that a revolution can be precipitated by a radical rethink of our identities in those terms. We should define ourselves in creative and courageous ways, rejecting labels and responsibilities when required, not only to live with greater integrity, but to forge a better, more equitable future.

www.biteprod.com.au

Whose Uterus Is It Anyway? 2018 The Old 505 Theatre
Whose Uterus Is It Anyway? 2018 The Old 505 Theatre
Whose Uterus Is It Anyway? 2018 The Old 505 Theatre
Whose Uterus Is It Anyway? 2018 The Old 505 Theatre