Lyall Brooks impresses in A Prudent Man written and directed by West Australian Katy Warner. Photograph via Lab Kelpie.
In a tour de force performance, Lyall Brooks impresses with his solo enactment of a contemporary politician in A Prudent Man as part of Fringe World 2017. This performance grips you the whole way until the sudden ending. With a sold out show Lyall Brooks must be applauded for his intensity and compelling performance. He has received three Green Room award nominations and has recently appeared in Neighbours and HBO’s The Leftovers.
The construction of of A Prudent Man is slightly unusual, and so brings the audience into its orbit very quickly. Utilising repetition, centred around a pivotal moment in the life of what you might take to be a One Nation politician showing his everyday human side. It is clearly about this politician defending himself (to who…us? The police?) around this pivotal event as well as cleverly and constantly emphasising the constructed performance side of a politician beset by advisors left, right and centre who ensure you marry to make the right impression, have the right number of children to make the right impression (‘I heard they’re charming’) illustrating the puppet nature of staying on message.
The work is written by West Australian Katy Warner who recently won the 2016 AWGIE for Best Children’s Theatre for Reasons to Stay Inside with A Prudent Man winning Audience Choice Award at the 2016 Melbourne Fringe Festival. Her stated aim in writing the work was to ‘understand the conservatives…that a lack of compassion and empathy could make them …right’. The writing is intense, reams and reams of dialogue erupt from our protagonist, with much of it being political rhetoric garnered from the last five years of politics. To some degree this works and to another it doesn’t. You tend to switch off the more you hear these platitudes; ‘our values, our country, mateship, Captain’s pick, pulled up by my bootstraps, mateship, fair go, power of democracy, security, just doing it to protect our borders…’ as we have heard them so many times before, but there is also a thrill to the recognition of our local Australia politics, and the story around this politician is also intriguing.
The actor is confined to a chair next to a desk for the entire performance and is incredibly compelling which is a huge testament to his excellent acting skills. Brooks brilliantly captures the use of stories to make a message more palatable to the GP (Gen Pop.), and Warner’s writing is also very clever at this point.
The central metaphor which reveals the stunning dénouement is both prosaic and powerful and in this the writer and performer have reached a pinnacle of drama. However it would be good to get there slightly sooner; the repetitions at the beginning could have been somewhat reduced, and some more vignettes from the person behind the politician rather than utilising the rhetoric we have all heard will no doubt ultimately date this fine work. Engaging with politics in theatre (and television) can be difficult and is not done often enough; there are many powerful aspects to A Prudent Man so kudos to all those involved.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
A Prudent Man
Written and Directed by Katy Warner
Performed by Lyall Brooks
Produced by Lab Kelpie founded in 2012 by Lyall Brooks and Adam Fawcett.
The Shambles, Fringe Central, Perth Cultural Centre, FringeWorld 2017 at 7.30pm. 1st – 6th February 2017.
