As I downed my first coffee of the day this morning, I turned to Facebook, and there it was again – someone feeling obliged to defend theatre from the accusation of being dead or dying. I don’t suppose the argument is going to go away any time soon, but I wish those who think live theatre is in terminal decline would look beyond state-funded companies and student productions.
They might start with Damien Callinan, better known as a comic, but as evidenced by his Brisbane Comedy Festival show The Merger, also a fine playwright and storyteller, and a skillful actor of great depth and complexity.
The Merger is the kind of theatre that makes my life as a theatre-goer worth living. It is a well-crafted play, hilarious and gutsy, charming and dangerous, provocative and subversive. A small stepladder and a box sit on an otherwise bare stage; at the side a plinth bearing a small radio. The radio gives forth the voices, the attitudes and the opinions (and the deliciously local small-town adverts) of the fictitious township of Bodgy Creek, but it could be just about any small community in Australia. The stepladder serves as an iconic tree stump in the centre of town, a dais, or a handy chair, whenever needed. The box contains two glove puppets.
On one level the story of a proposed merger between two rival football clubs, this is also the story of 21st century Australia: passionate about sport, culturally and ethnically diverse, and confused, politically apathetic and polarised. The environmentally savvy coach of the Bodgy Creek Roosters quotes Rousseau and provides the team with handy Shakespearean sledges. The Roosters’ president, Bull, endures his medical procedures without equanimity, and with a touch of racist slander. The opposing team’s president ambitiously pursues the commercial imperative and follows the current fashion for demonising asylum seekers. The asylum seekers who live locally bring their birth country customs and rituals to the community, whether they are welcome or not. There are no cut-and-dried heroes or villains here, just regular people who try to do the right thing by their own lights; some of them find the opportunity to grow as decent human beings in the course of the story.
With subtle shifts in his physicality and vocal behavior, Callinan transforms instantly between characters, from belligerent Bull to Bull’s grandson, the awkward 10 year old documentary film-maker, Neil. Callinan interacts with the audience (casting us as the rest of the team) throughout, inviting us to experience the unfolding circumstances as if it were our own story. Which, indeed, it is. And that is what makes it, in my opinion, great theatre.
Rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
Damian Callinan – The Merger
Brisbane Powerhouse, Turbine Room
12 to 17 March
Brisbane Comedy Festival 2013
briscomfest.com
26 February – 24 March
