Thrashing about in carnal climax, Wilfrid comes, his father goes, his load blown, dad’s spirit flown, and family secrets and enmities are revealed.

This is the way his world upends, with a bang and a limper in TIDELINE by Wajdi Mouawad.

We are told about the sex and death in a monologue before moving on to a peepshow where Wilfrid takes solace in masturbation. This is his way of pulling himself together after the shock of becoming an orphan. It’s tissue time.

After gawking at live flesh he baulks at viewing the extinct, unable to gird his loins to identify his deceased dad’s body. A contretemps with the pathologist over the cadaver ensues. Neither gift of the gab nor grip of the grab.

Then…Dad’s burial postponed after a postmortem as buried secrets are exhumed and Wilfred’s wilful infantalism explained. He doesn’t have ants in his pants so much as aunts in his mouth, spoon feeding, soup ladling, soap lathering, a smothering psuedo mothering.

Turns out, everyone hated the old man so he can’t be interned in the family plot. No crypt tonight for this not so super man. So he steals the body, sometimes revivified into a paternal zombie, and sets off on a quest to bury dad in his war ravaged homeland, accompanied by the phantasm of Sir Giromelans, obscure knight from Arthur’s fabled round table, and flesh and blood peace activist and singer, Simone.

Together they collide with a number of characters, friends and foes, in a series of set-piece ennui-endo.

TIDELINE is a shambolic production with the acting as course as the language and direction that is laissez-faire to say the least.

Adeeb Razzouk as Wilfred carries the weight of acting on his shoulders in a duty worthy of a theatrical Atlas and Cassady Booth delights as Simone, especially when she sings.

Performed on a bare, wide stage with incongruous microphone and clothes horse accoutrements, TIDELINE ebbs and flows in baffling laps, leaps and lapses.

TIDELINE plays till 29 October 2022 || Wed to Sat 7.30 pm – Sunday 5 pm

at Chippen Street Theatre || 45 Chippen Street, Chippendale

DURATION 2 hours (with interval)

TICKETS $40 Full – $35 Conc. (+booking fees)

INFO / BOOKINGS www.theatrexcentrique.com or phone: 0432 714 809

Directed by Anna Jahjah 

Written by Wajdi MouawadTranslated from French (Canada) by Shelley Tepperman

With Lucas Connolly, Kirsty Jordan, Cassady Maddox, Neil Modra, Adeeb Razzouk, Antoine Razzouk, Gerry Sont & Anthony White

Producer: Théâtre ExcentriqueAssistant Director: Kate Jordan Stage Manager: Rory Kinsella Lighting Designer: Larry Kelly Sound Designer: Clément Queysanne Production Manager: Gerry Sont Costume Designer: Olivia Auday Set Designer: Anna JahjahProduction Photographer: Mansoor Noor