HOME | BOOMERAMA | TRAVEL | EATS & DRINKS | THEATRE | MUSIC | ISSUES | HEALTH | NESTS & NEST EGGS | BOOKS | FASHION | ART & MUSEUMS
 |
|
POSTED: 16 JANUARY 2010
Trolley Boys, by Alex Cullen
Wild Oat Productions & Tamarama Rock Surfers | Old Fitzroy Hotel, Woolloomooloo, Sydney | Until 30 Jan
If you’ve never ventured to The Old Fitzroy Hotel, it’s an absolute gem of a pub. Stepping into its slightly gloomy, cramped interior is like stepping back in time.
Stepping into the Playhouse below is similarly cramped and gloomy, just filled with a lot of choking ‘atmospheric’ smoke that wouldn’t be allowed upstairs for health reasons.
Trolley Boys is billed as an exploration of growing up in suburban Sydney, but with a lot of bizarre and fantastical things happening along the way. A supermarket-trolley collector, Dirk (Aidan Gillett), is about to turn 21 — an age that signals the ‘death knell’ for trolley boys, usually fired at that point to make way for younger, cheaper workers.
With his mate Todd (Jamie McCarney) and Todd’s sister and security worker Nivek (Emily Rose Brennan), they set off on an Oz-like journey of zombies, trash monsters and ruby Crocs.
Alex Cullen’s script draws heavily on her background on Sydney’s southern beaches, an area of which I’ll admit I have little knowledge. Therefore some of the occasionally overused, more locally specific slang was a bit of a mystery at times.
Michael Dahlstrom’s director’s notes indicate that the work developed through rehearsal and includes many improvised lines and ideas. Improvisation during rehearsal is a fantastic way to fully explore a script and often results in some brilliant moments.
Unfortunately, I got the feeling that too much directorial rope had been allowed. In a bid for laughs, focus was often pulled from the story and characters by unnecessary and sometimes pointless actions (I’m thinking of the zombie hump-licking here).
And this is the danger. When a cast has been slogging away at a work for many hours, you do start to doubt if it’s funny because you know it all so well. When something different is thrown in, it often gets a great reaction from cast and crew because it’s fresh. It doesn’t mean it should make it into the final production.
Considering the size of the Playhouse, the staging design works very well to maximise the performance space. It’s a shame the over-enthusiastic use of haze effects meant that the audience was blasted with smoke every so often.
Trolley Boys is a good idea, and it’s great that the Tamarama Rock Surfers dedicate time and effort to supporting new, independent Australian theatre. It’s also got some genuinely funny moments, and Aidan Gillett does a great job as the understated Dirk.
However, in this instance, there simply didn’t seem to be enough to sustain the original premise into a stand-alone work. Trolley Boys may have fared better as a short play, perhaps as a part of something like New Theatre’s Brand Spanking New series.
Although billed as an hour and 20 minutes, the show was over in an hour. Whether this was due to something being cut, mistiming, or simply being rushed I’m not sure, but it’s quite a large discrepancy. I’m also not sure it’s value for money, unless you go for the beer and laksa ticket and enjoy the fabulous food upstairs first.
Like a trolley with a wobbly wheel, Trolley Boys doesn’t work quite as well as it should. It couldn’t seem to make up its mind in which direction to go. Maybe with some tweaking and judicious tightening, it needn’t be scrapped.
CLICK HERE to email Oz Baby Boomers with a comment regarding this play or review.
HOME | BOOMERAMA | TRAVEL | EATS & DRINKS | THEATRE | MUSIC | ISSUES | HEALTH | NESTS & NEST EGGS | BOOKS | FASHION | ART & MUSEUMS