The Sheds

In The Sheds, writer/director James Cunningham promises a controversial examination of mateship and masculinity against the backdrop of Australian Rules football.

The media narrative surrounding gay footballers has grown progressively stronger in recent times. Indeed, Cunningham has selected a particularly loaded topic and should be commended for his attempt at the bold subject matter. In the back theatre at Fitzroy North’s Long Play, a minimalist set effectively conjures the locker room of fictitious team the Fitzroy Fighters, while placing the audience intimately and almost uncomfortably close to the performers.

The piece kicks in just after star player Darren Anderson (Patrick Chirico) has announced to the media that he’s gay. While the ‘coming out’ part of the story is skipped in The Sheds, the somewhat measured and balanced response of Anderson to his teammate’s rejection on the field and in the showers afterwards feels refreshing, breaking apart some of the embedded storytelling devices inherent in ‘the traditional coming out story.’

What follows is a simplistic yet underdeveloped journey for Anderson and his two teammates as they come to terms with their differing values and beliefs. The collision between Liam Greenwood (Ludwik Exposto) as the supportive teammate, and Jimmy Davis (Andii Mulders) who struggles to accept Darren’s differing sexuality underpins the primary construction of the drama, but unfortunately this is mismanaged and ultimately unsatisfying for an audience.

The major challenges begin with a lack of clarity as to whose ‘story’ The Sheds belongs to. While the most obvious choice would be the newly out Anderson, we never get the opportunity to get inside his head to properly grasp his perspective. Rather, the character of Greenwood is used in this way as a fly on the wall narrator to elaborate on events unfolding both in and out of the locker room. His insights to the audience don’t reveal anything new and become distracting to the drama. Why does Greenwood need to talk about what is going on, when he could just show us? The character arc of Davis, which rises to prominence in the second act, also feels confusing and inconsistent.  

The narrative world of The Sheds is equally confusing, moving between a local VFL-styled suburban competition to the lights and hype of the AFL; yet it cannot be both. Discussion of sponsorship deals, media interviews and aggressive fan mail feels inherently unconvincing, when the characters seem more suited to be playing a grassroots suburban competition on a Saturday afternoon. Such a setting may have made for more punchy and effective storytelling.

There are several times where Cunningham begins to nicely draw out some tension between his three characters, yet as he moves the drama along towards a tipping point, these scenes are cut repeatedly and prematurely and with unnecessary blackouts.

Arguably, herein lies the major frustration of The Sheds. Rather than letting his audience see characters as they fall apart while facing their demons, Cunningham moves straight along to the next moment without any time to pause. A 15 minute interval in the middle of the 60 minute show was disruptive and lacked the appropriate hooks or unanswered questions to warrant such an extended break in the performance. Much of the narrative drive also seems to come from whether the team is winning or losing matches, as opposed to the divide between characters, which could have swapped and changed much in the same way.

A more effective presentation might have been to consider something more continuous and uninterrupted, whereby characters could not escape their personal truths nor the consequences of their actions. The claustrophobic nature of the venue itself could have also been exploited in this way to heighten the performance.

The small cast are energetic and tackle the subject matter enthusiastically. Both Ludwik Exposto and Andii Mulders are convincing in their roles as Anderson’s teammates. Emerging actor Patrick Chirico stands out with a calm and commanding stage presence and is someone to watch out for in future productions.