In Karina Young’s new play DON’T SAVE ME, Jade and Pat are a doting young couple whose marriage is rocked by Jade receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis from her GP. Jade takes the news badly yet not half as badly as Pat who goes in to a real tail spin.
Pat works for a cutting edge IT company, very up to date with the latest developments in artificial intelligence. Truly mortified, Pat installs devices, bugs, around the unit. At a later time, and unseen, he then feeds them into his computer, creating a made up, artificial Jade who he will then be able to live with, after Jade dies.
I enjoyed this far fetched and dramatically fetching ride that playwright (and producer) Karina Young gives us. Young has clearly learned some deft skills having completed in 2024 her Masters of Writing for Performance at the National Institute for Dramatic Art (NIDA).
Nelson Blake’s direction is clear and supported by good dramaturgical work by Lily Thomson, a colleague with Young at NIDA, which gave the play a sound structure, and saw the play end on a telling, poetical note.
Andrea Knezevic’s set (and costume) design of Jade and Pat’s apartment, fitted well in to the tiny KXT stage, and
was finely detailed with awell delineated kitchen area, (fridge with magnets, pantry cupboards and kitchen table) and living room with a sofa and a wide bookcase filled with paperbacks and nicknacks. Entrances and exits worked well with my friend and I feeling very involved as we were next to one of these access points.
There were plenty of good lighting touches by Topaz Marlay-Cole, another NIDA grad, in Technical Theatre, and Felix Partos, a grad from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, contributed an edgy soundscape.
Holly Mazzola gave the performance of the night as the very sensitive, vibrant Jade. Though she has been given a death sentence, she is more full of life than her partner Pat who doesn’t score too highly on emotional intelligence. As Pat, Ben Itaba shows some neat, understated comic touches, including a very funny scene which sees him playfully eat away at his breakfast cereal whilst knowing his wife, sitting very aggrieved on the sofa, just wants to get up and go over and throttle him.
The show features a warm sister dynamic happening between Jade and her very caring, loyal, though sometimes frustrated sister, Alyssa, well played by Raechyl French.
A play about how one deals with, or doesn’t deal with loss, Karina Young’s DON’T SAVE ME, a Puncher’s Chance Co in association with Bakehouse Theatre Co production, is well worth seeing, and is playing the vibrant KXT Theatre Broadway, a venue well worth visiting. This show is playing until and including Saturday 8th March 2025.
Production photography b y Phil Erbacher
