KANGAROO VALLEY. To 10 April.
London
KANGAROO VALLEY
by Toby Farrow
Southwark Playhouse To 10 April 2004
Mon-Sat 7.30pm
Runs 2hr 5min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7620 3494
boxoffice@southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 March
Fun and the serious game of life with dysfunctional hostel inhabitants.British theatre does aggro and oddball well, so it's no surprise to find the vigorous humour of Toby Farrow's look at Aussies and a South African holed up in a West London hostel makes for a rumbustious evening. In the dilapidated confines of Katy Sykes well-observed set, Chad a kind of half-trustworthy trusty in some sort of control of the regulations (part fearful for his job, part wanting a cut when rules are broken) lets in South African Jez late one night, thinking he's a fellow Australian.
For cherubic Jez (William Bowry only slightly straining in the more lyrical remembered moments) it's bad enough meeting physically fit, emotional volatile and violent Norman, the older man inured to this world. He can eat Jez alive before the young man's aware he's being digested. But even Norman quails at the fearsome Tica, halfway round the world and keeping this home life separate from her lap and pole dancing.
There's rough humour, tension and coming through it all the sense that the transient life is an escape bid from fear of failure. It takes physical destruction for Jez to admit he hasn't the will to win at swimming, and while Chad gives competitive skateboarding a go, he ends up done in by a dodgy board. You'd think a would-be champ might check these things.
Norman's rough mastery of this world is contrasted by a couple of reflective moments, after which his certainty over backpacker's hell as life's real deal' seems more like capitulation in the face of life's challenges. And Tica goes beyond disenchantment with her photography; as she turns on Jez her dance-act starts seeming a desperate search for integrity and some sense of control.
All fine, rough stuff, with forceful, high-energy performances in the author's own production (first seen in Bristol), ranging from Nicholas Gadd's mainly comic Chad to Stuart Crossman's alternately bluff and sinister Norman, with Chloe Summerskill gradually revealing the discontent driving Tica's temper.
But all-round inbuilt defeat is familiar enough in modern drama to risk seeming easy or even sentimental. The real dramatic challenge would be to go beyond it. Next time maybe.
Norman: Stuart Crossman
Jez: William Bowry
Chad: Nicholas Gadd
Tica: Chloe Summerskill
Director: Toby Farrow
Designer: Katy Sykes
Lighting: Tom Attenborough
Sound: Jason Barnes
Assistant director: Ben Long
Dramaturgy: Simon Reade, David Farr
2004-04-02 00:20:18