Review: Robots Vs Art

Robots Vs. Art
La Mama
3 June 2012
La Mama Courthouse
to 10 June
lamama.com.au

There's a very funny and unexpectedly touching short play hiding in Robots Vs. Art.

Welcome to the future. Robots got super smart and killed off most of the naughty humans who were destroying the world; the rest now work in underground mines and get beaten with chains. One robot (Simon Maiden) is researching "art" and wrote a play, so it's lucky that there's a once-playwright/director (Daniel Frederiksen) is in the mines who wants to convince the bots about the importance of art and feeling.

I honestly thought this was a first-time script, until realising that I had seen (and loved) Travis Cotton's writing, like The Rites of Evil. The first half has clunky exposition, slabs of telling the play-going audience that plays and art are good things, OMG-you've-already-told-us repetition, less-funny-the-second/third-time jokes and direction that seems intent on prolonging every scene with enough dead stage time to let me read my program and decide what to make for dinner. And we know more about the robot than the hero's character at this stage.

Or: The script would benefit from a good edit.

Cotton also directs. When going all meta with characters explaining the nature and structure of plays, declaring that art is good, talking about reviews that "seem unkind", stressing the importance of empathy and using lines like "The script is devoid of anything resembling art", the direction and tone have to be so ironic that we laugh with you and are not tempted to use it against you.

Then, perhaps an hour in, Robots Vs. Art finds its tone, settles on a pace, gives its characters some life, becomes laugh-out-loud funny and brings its audience into a shared experience.  It's great stuff and Paul Goddard and Natasha Jacobs are the best robots since (insert your favourite robot). There are hints of this in the early part, but it may help if Clawbot (my new favourite robot) pulverises a good chunk of the beginning.

The Rites of Evil

MELBOURNE FRINGE 2009
The Rites of Evil
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
4 September 2009
Red Stitch

In a recent interview, playwright (and actor) Travis Cotton said that mediocrity is the toughest challenge he faces in his work. Fortunately, there is nothing mediocre in his latest creation, The Rites of Evil, or in Red Stitch’s production of it.

Red Stitch thrive on presenting th contemporary playwrights that would usually miss be Australian stages. This lets us see incredible scripts from the UK, the USA and, in this case, Australia. The Rites of Evil is Travis Cotton fourth work and its complexity, dark absurdity and outright guts place it very comfortably in the company’s program.

If you’re not in your 30s or 40s, you could miss the subtleties of The Rites of Evil, but they add an extra dimension of enjoyment for those of us who remember why we avoid Nestle and Coke products and may even support Easter’s rites of evil theory. When Easter and Xavier are released from an undefined institution, they form a forced friendship that, for all its dysfunction, may be the only real thing in their lives – if their parole officer, Bronwyn, lets them meet.

Travis Cotton has created a world that lets us laugh, hope and hurt at the same time, but it’s the vision of Director Alex Menglet that brings the world to life. Menglet controls the elevated-mood and the Absurd aspects of the script, creating a balance of hope and menace that keeps the audience engaged in the emotion of the story and not distracted by the gorgeous grace notes of the Tamagotchi, the Nazi boots and the bizarre on-stage mix of old and older technology (exquisitely designed by Peter Mumford).

The contrast of Tim Potter’s, Johnny Carr’s and Erin Dewar’s performances is like mixing plaid with polka dots and paisley. The combination should overpower and frustrate our aesthetics but, as anyone with a patchwork quilt will testify, the combination creates a more intense and oddly satisfying effect. Each are clown-like in their approach but raw in their emotion, and their heightened performances magnifies the reality of their situation and increases impact of their downfall.

The Rites of Evil is Red Stitch’s Melbourne Fringe show, so it’s a terrific chance to get into the Fringe early and start the annual celebration of Melbourne’s independent theatre.

More 2009 Fringe reviews.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.