Review: Roam

Roam
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
13 October 2013
Red Stitch
to 9 November
redstitch.net

Adam J A Cass's Roam was developed through the Red Stitch Writers Program. Like his very successful I Love You, Bro (first seen at the 2007 Fringe), it's about remembering that no matter how anonymous we play on the internet, there's a person behind every hot game avatar, flattering wink and bitchy comment.

Johnny (Tim Potter) and Julia (Ella Caldwell) are unhappily happy in a relationship that's ok enough to keep going, but ignores the death of her father and the loss of his job.

For Johnny, comfort is the anonymity of web chat roulette and amateur porn. But his irresistible find is a 13-year-old girl (Ngaire Dawn Faire) from Estonia, whom he joins in an online game based on Ancient Rome. Here his credit card buys the points she can't afford and they fight together to rule Rome as the sexiest avatars. Then Julia logs in.

The story comes to virtually real life when the design team (Benjamin Shaw, Jason Bovaird, Clare Springett, David Nelson, Michael Watson and Daniel Nixon) bring the screen onto the stage and transform the stage to the hyper-reality of Roam's Rome. Even with a too-Tron moment, the digital design creates a world that shows non-gamers why some gamers never want to leave their screen life, where they can look how they want to and be all the people they'll never be bold enough to be in the dull reality of reality. (And this is why I stick to Candy Crush.)

Director and dramaturg Gary Abrahams worked with Cass on the script and their success is making an overwhelming and endlessly complex issue into a story about three people who are facing deaths and endings.

For all the whizz-bangery of the design, it's still the question of whether Johnny and Julia will survive that creates the story's tension and hope. However, I'd like to see more ambiguity about the 13-year-old  or a bigger story about her, especially as the script keeps glancing at consequences of adults playing online with children.

There's a level to Roam that hasn't been revealed yet and, of course, it has to keep playing to find its depth and its bigger world (and maybe a re-boot of the ending, which is satisfying but doesn't answer enough questions). But without programs like this Writers Program, new scripts like this wouldn't be able to develop in front of an audience and there's something raw and powerful about seeing a script at an early stage.

In the meantime, the cast grasp the work's heart and its story reaches into the world of anyone who plays on a screen.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

You’re Not The Boss of Me

You’re Not The Boss of Me
La Mama
7 July 2009
La Mama Courthouse

You’re Not The Boss Of Me opens with two children playing Bonka in a red cage. Bonka is everything. We don’t know what it is, we don’t know why they are there, but we fear the worst and hope for the best.

Director Adam J A Cass says in his program notes that he’s sucked in by theatre that surprises, stays one step ahead and doesn’t spoon feed. No wonder he jumped at the chance to direct Natasha Jacobs’ script.

You’re Not The Boss Of Me plays with playing and we hope the physical cage is a metaphor. We try to find the truth amongst the tricks, teases, games and dreams, then try to avoid it when we see it. Jacobs excels at creating unease and discomfort by only letting us glimpse the truth as it plays hide and seek in the story and in our understanding. She knows that what we imagine is so much more powerful than what we are told.

Jacobs knows every nuance of her script and her performance as the girl is riveting. This girl doesn’t want to drop her mask of control, not even to her only friend and hope, and it’s a rare performer that let’s the character keep her control, while letting the audience see the horror and fear that created the mask. Sam Hall, as her friend, equals Jacobs’ energy and gently reveals his character’s reality as his innocence slips away and he is forced to take control.

Cass’ direction is paced perfectly. The first act is full of movement, fun and hope that it’s all just a game, while the second act almost stills to a halt, as the hints of truth can no longer be hidden and the tension becomes beautifully uncomfortable. Directing actors to perform as children can be more difficult than directing children. If either performer were allowed to fall into the unforgiveable cliché of a comic child, the impact would be lost. He lets the children play, while bringing an adult understanding that the reasons for their play are complex and hidden.

The design team (Luke Stokes – set, Richard Vabre – lighting, Camilla McKewan – costume and Brooke Taylor – sound) create the unsettling caged world the children play in. The design lets the audience feel slightly confused, but, like the script, is open to many interpretations.

Unfortunately, the season has ended, but this is a work that deserves to be seen again.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

I Love You, Bro

I Love You, Bro
Three to a Room and Malthouse Theatre
14 February 2009
The Tower, Cub Malthouse

If you heard that I Love You Bro was not to be missed – but you missed its 2007 and 2008 seasons – don’t worry because it’s at the Malthouse Theatre until the end of the month. Don’t miss it this time.

Among the madness of the 2007 Melbourne Fringe was a small show called I Love You, Bro. I wasn’t the only reviewer praising, and Adam J A Cass secured a Fringe award and a Green Room nomination for his script. Local independent producers Three to a Room came on board and more great reviews and full houses followed at a short Melbourne return season and the Edinburgh Fringe. Whilst they were on the other side of the world, the Malthouse’s Executive Producer finally caught the show and promptly placed it in the company’s 2009 season.

Cass’s script is inspired by the true story of a Manchester teenager who convinced another boy to stab him solely from their internet communications. At the time, it was almost unbelievable that anyone’s reality could be so influenced by the falseness of the net. It happened when chat was still for the geeks, but now even my Mum chats to me on Facebook and it’s not so hard to imagine how easy it was for Johnny to lure Mark to that alley.

I’ve raved about this script before, but it continues to deserve many words of praise. Cass took the facts and made it a story. His fluid flow from past to present never ceases to intrigue, his simple use of minor offstage characters shows us so much about Johnny, and he gives Johnny opportunities to make it right – whilst knowing there is no was out.

Although it was written about a very specific sub-culture, increasing technology and our willing acceptance of the virtual world has revealed a depth to the script that wasn’t so obvious at first. As many of us now interact in a virtual world as much as Johnny did, the underlying themes of lies, deceit, loneliness and power play much more strongly than the plot about the boy chatting online. As our perceptions are changing, perhaps the script could be made even more powerful with some cautious editing.

If you saw the original production, the changes to I Love You, Bro are minimal, but the growth is substantial. Jason Lehane has redesigned his subtle, yet powerful, set for the larger venue, with his projections adding their own narrative to the stage and a lighting design that must be what cyber space looks like.

The piece is now also performed with a northern English accent. Having seen both versions, I wouldn’t have noticed the accent if I hadn’t known it was there. I do wonder about the choice to add accents when a story is universal, but it adds a degree of authenticity, without distracting from its power or from the story and Ash Flanders never lets the accent define or control the character.

I can’t imagine anyone but Flanders as Johnny. He is best known around town for his questionable “ball acting” in Sisters Grimm productions. His mad, punk-camp-drag is mighty fine, but his performance in I Love You, Bro is remarkable. The complexity of the script makes it a very difficult piece to perform, demanding that the actor be Johnny, his own object of desire and every persona he creates. Flanders relishes the difficulty and his connection to the audience reflects the state of Johnny’s thoughts, being intimate and personal, then distant and detached. He never lets us feel sorry for Johnny, but gives a sense of warped understanding and empathy.

A monologue set in front of a computer, with a disjointed sense of time and minimal action isn’t something most directors would jump at. Fortunately, Yvonne Virsik jumped. Her direction gives a satisfying completeness to the work, as she finds the changing truth in the script, lets the audience find a path though the complex plot, and guides Flanders’s performance to a level that he may not have known he could achieve.

I Love You, Bro is one of those shining examples of what can be created from passion and a desire to show a story to the world. Such romantic notions are well and good, but even artists need to pay rent and have a meal, so let’s hope that this Malthouse season opens up many more doors that help Bros’s 2009 UK tour.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

48 Hour Play Generator

48 Hour Play Generator
The Emerging Writers Festival
11 May 2008
BMW Edge, Federation Square

Take four emerging playwrights and four famous paintings. Leave them alone for 48 hours and see what happens. Welcome to the second 48-Hour Play Generator, the closing event of Melbourne’s Emerging Writer’s Festival

How do local playwrights get their work read, let alone developed and produced? A script can be brilliantly written, but it’s only half-alive if it isn’t performed and seen. The Melbourne Dramatists are a group of well-known, mid-career playwrights trying to address the problem.  Group members Ross Mueller, Adam Cass, Robert Reid, Melissa Bubnic and Amelia Roper cranked up the Generator.

Early career playwrights Tom Maclachlan, Fregmonto Stokes, Meg Courtney and Michele Lee were The Generator’s chosen fuel. On Friday, each was given a well-known painting as a stimulus. On Sunday, their newly written short plays were teamed with a director and three actors. On Sunday night, an audience gathered in the glass surrounds of the BMW Edge, eager to see the results. It really sounds like a writer’s nightmare. Who hasn’t had that dream where they are totally unprepared and about to be judged by an audience of their peers?

There cannot be any serious criticism of works written in such a short time. Completing the process alone is admirable. The fact that all created credible, interesting and engaging short plays proves how damn good these writers are.

It was fascinating to see works at such a raw, almost still-bleeding stage. Most chose very encompassing themes (God, religion and morality were popular), some let their characters have a personal rant, and most plot holes were filled with description and exposition – but each writer created something highly original without resorting to formula, cliché or stereotype. I’m sure that the hokey pokey of Not in this Town (Maclachlan), the taboo discussion of Every Spitting Angel (Stokes), the confession hearing cow of Gopastami (Courtney), and the haunting celler dwellers of Cellar Children (Lee) will all be developed by their writers into something new and wonderful.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Oasis, Oasis

Oasis, Oasis
Adam J A Cass
17 April 2008
fortyfivedownstairs

Some people can chose the right words, then put them in an order that makes your insides stir. Adam Cass writes beautifully. And he understands how to use beautifully arranged words to create engaging and moving theatre. Oasis, Oasis is his most recent work. This production deserves to be seen and loved.

Before the show even begins, the audience move into an intimate, warm and gentle atmosphere. Creating this in the large, and potentially distracting, space at fortyfive downstairs is an achievement. Lighting (Lisa Mibus), design (Amy Feiner) and live music (Amanda Medica and Andrew Crosbie) combine to maintain this sense of welcome throughout even the darkest moments of the piece.

Have you ever watched someone cry on train and looked away? Or found yourself crying on a train? There’s a strange freedom of being totally anonymous in a crowded, public place. What would happen if someone was brave enough to ask if you’re OK? Then followed you off the train?

Cass finds the poetic and the theatric in unexpected places. This story is set in a crowded peak hour train, busy city streets and the top of a high building. Yet we never hear the noise or feel the crowded frustration. We are clearly in the lonely minds and empty hearts of the two characters.

There’s nothing original about Maude and Penelope. They have the same problems seen on daily TV soap. But they are authentic and alive because we recognize ourselves in them. This quite remarkable writing exposes the universal (and/or the archetypal) in their ordinary existence and ordinary problems. There’s nothing unique about heartbreak, loneliness and despised jobs, but we care about these characters because we recognise the feeling of pointless grief and our inability to escape from its hurt.

At the same time, these women face genuine problems. They act and they change. With a subtle, constant tension of mystery and confusion, Cass confronts our expectations by making us doubt their truth, doubt their sanity and even doubt their reality. His language is gorgeous, but the words would collapse without the intricate and strong supporting structure.

Past and present effortlessly merge, as the inner thoughts and outer actions of the women. It’s like lava lamp. The heavy purple of the past sits within the fluid blue present. They never mix, always change and create a much more enchanting whole together. Luckily, Cass writes better metaphors than I do. His imagery is distinct and heavy, but it’s so natural for grief to dance in his world.

There’s also a lot of comedy in this script, but it’s getting lost. I found the same thing in his last work I Love You Bro The humour is deliciously dark. A 75% bitter-sweet dark chocolate isn’t as widely loved as a caramel filled bear-like-marsupial-shaped chocolate, but it’s sophisticated taste goes a long way and it’s really much better for you. There seems a resistance to laugh out loud at this type of humour. Jokes don’t have to have a punch line and laughter pause.

Cass also directed Oasis Oasis. When a writer directs their own work, it offers a rare chance to really see the playwright’s vision and intent. His direction is nearly as beautiful as his writing. His knowledge of his own work gives a clarity and depth to every element of the production. The vision is supported through the design, the performers know their characters, the pace is superb and the music is as close to perfect as live music can be in a play. However, one day, I would really like to see how a more distant and less attached director sees this script. Sometimes a stranger can see so much more in a piece of writing than the author intended.

Sarah Hamilton and Katie Astrinakis clearly love this work. It is a joy to see actors loving their characters and sharing the vision of the director and writer. Both performances need to settle though. I could see too much acting and technique. This will change as the run continues and they trust that their rich performances and the magic words are reaching the audience.

Oasis, Oasis captures of the loop of loneliness, failed relationships and hated jobs is almost sublime, yet it lets us soar out of the misery into a place where happiness is possible. This is beautiful, beautiful theatre.

Independent theatre makers usually don’t receive funding or subsidy or cash from any source than the box office. Adam Cass is performing a “one-off-one-night-only-one-one-man-show” called The Tom Rescue Monologue as a fundraiser to get I Love you Bro to the ‘08 Edinburgh Fringe. It’s on Sunday 20 April at 8pm, also at fortyfivedownstairs. Entry is by donation.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.