This was a really good student production, featuring adventurous, fluid direction, credible, committed performances from the cast, and good production values.
It was very apparant that everyone involved related to, and believed in, this strong, well crafted Cowell piece about a young man battling alcohol addiction.
Ruben Guthrie is a marvelous stage role and in his portrayal Jack Colquhoun hits all the right notes. His Ruben is feisty, smart, funny, sharp as a tack, vulnerable, at times even tortured.
We realise early on that this lad has a lot of work to do on himself when he makes the smart-ass comment as he grabs a champagne, ‘I am celebrating my first AA meeting’!
Britt Ferry impressed as Ruben’s sophisticated, attractive, disillusioned 19 year old model who goes back home to Prague for a while to flee Ruben’s acidic remarks such as ‘models have a shelf life of ten minutes’, and his increasingly self-destructive behaviour.
Ben Chapple and Abigail Dixon played Ruben’s dysfunctional parents , Peter and Susan. I particularly enjoyed Ben’s performance in conveying Peter’s daggy character.
Ellen Wiltshire was very convincing as pushy druggie Virginia who Ruben meets at the fellowship and then falls into a relationship with.
Luke Baweja was a warm audience favourite and added a lot of light relief as Ruben’s effervescent gay friend, Damian who tries to drink as much of Ruben’s grog from his bar that he can, as well as trying to get Ruben to bat for his side!
Will Hall, cast a little against type, was fine as Ruben’s insensitive, hard edged, impatient fast talking boss, Ray, who is only interested in making the big bucks and maintaining his harbour office with the great views, and cynically calls the Fellowship a ‘personal nourishment plan’.
Tom Crotty’s smooth direction worked well and I enjoyed the inspired us of extracts of old tv advertisements that flashed up on screen and were used as bridges between scenes. As Ruben’s career was in advertising, working with the Sublimate advertising group, these segments were particularly appropriate, especially the ironic use of ‘I feel like a Tooheys’ advertisement.
June Murtagh and Katerina Lonergan’s set design worked well as did Clare Roberts costume designs. Alicia Easaw-Mamutil was the epitome of efficiency as she ran the bio box from the side of the stage.
Sadly this UTS Production only had only the shortest of seasons at its home, the Bon Marche Studio, playing for just three nights, between June 25th and June 27th.
Next up it will be time to catch the film adaptation, directed by Cowell, and starring Patrick Brammel as Guthrie, and two of our veteran actors, Robyn Nevin and Jack Thompson, as his parents, which will open in cinemas on the 16th July. It will be very interesting to see where and how this play will be reworked for the big screen.