Image: Gary Marsh Photography
Playwright Elton has long been a Fremantle resident, and displays his familiarity with Western Australian preoccupations in this re-visit of Gasping for Black Swan State Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre Company. Changing his villains from corporate yuppies to mining executives, his original premise of greed and strategic marketing conspiring to privatise air still rings disturbingly close to current business models.
Phillip and Sandy are summoned for a crisis meeting in the office of Sir Chifley Lockheart, a mining leader whose strategy has been to inherit mines and expand them. However, Australia has now been entirely dug up. Lockheart tasks “his people” with finding the next resource to exploit. During a hospital visit, Phillip has a Eureka moment to provide clean air for allergy sufferers. His idea grows to cover the concept of “designer air”, and further expands to encompass the global oxygen supply, leading to a new trillion-dollar internationally traded industry. Along the way he discovers the true natures of love, pride and success, as his world breathes its way to its last gasp.
Damon Lockwood, playing Phillip, carries the narrative, his superb physical control bringing humour non-verbally as well as perfectly timing his many one-liners that pepper the script. Greg McNeill (Lockheart) plays the affable side to greed, bringing out an unexpected knowledge of historical precedents as well as retrograde sexism, intractable conservatism and devotion to business profits. Steven Rooke (Sandy) plays his sycophantic airhead role to the hilt, despite some unfortunate Austin Powers-inspired attempts at seduction. Caroline Brazier plays Kirsten as the archetypal manipulative marketer and makes the most of a role limited by the assumption that female ambition peaks at sleeping with a successful man. Lucy Goleby delivers a solid performance as Phillip’s love interest and muse, despite Elton not seeming able to produce any witty lines for her as a “goodie” or as a female not obsessed with sexual scheming.
Each scene concludes with a tight spotlight on Lockwood’s face, his eyes popping as he responds to preceding events with precise facial control, in one of many instances where Gasp! seems better suited to a television production rather than theatre. The rapidly delivered, wordy script trips cast members occasionally, as they try to deliver the clever content clearly, another example of the opportunities for re-takes offered by the small screen to improve this piece. Slightly cheesy musical selections including “Take my breath away” work with the wordplay but do not particularly add to the stage atmosphere or action.
Interesting lighting uses screens as scenery as well as a light source behind the action. Conveyor belts effectively move scenery and cast on and off stage, the silhouettes created in the process are striking and each commencing tableau commands interest. The set rejoices in stunning furniture selections and the impressive graphic designs and visual displays look cleanly professional, with sharp costuming completing a very good-looking presentation.
Gasp!’s problem is Elton’s script. The sheer volume of words may work better on a smaller stage, or on a small screen, but there are too many leftovers from the original British work. While Elton fans may enjoy such verbose titbits as “foaming arse porridge” and “bugger me backwards with a blunt market vegetable”, the abundance of such digressions slows the pace, smacks of creative desperation and becomes tedious, particularly in the second half. While it seems inevitable that any comedy set in modern Western Australia will refer to Gina Rinehart, the line up of cheap shots to establish topicality and location becomes an exercise in brainstorming, more suited to a quick fire stand up comedy challenge rather than a fully scripted play. Such points include wagyu beef, Team Australia, Renée Zellweger’s cosmetic surgery, airline baggage allowances, Gumtree ads, Robin Thicke lyrics and Big Brother ratings. Awkwardly recycled jokes from Thatcher’s Britain remain, with references to Japanese efficiency, Catholicism, World War II, private school education and an even older extended fart joke sequence. Then there are the strange word choices, “OMG”, “shizzle”, “lady garden” and “hashtag” sharing the stage with “slapper” and “forward” (in describing a confident, flirtatious woman). While “frankenTimTams” is pretty good, it hardly compensates for the relentless onslaught of second-rate material during the rest of the play.
Despite my criticisms of the lack of quality and originality in material, Gasp! brings laughter at the right times, so obviously reaches its target audience. The actors perform well, the set is beautifully designed, the technical aspects are creatively considered and smoothly executed – it is a pity that such resources and talent could not go towards producing something genuinely exciting for Western Australians to claim as their own, rather than this colour by numbers update of a mildly interesting comedy.
Rating; 2.5 stars out of 5 stars
Gasp!
By Ben Elton
Presented by Black Swan State Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre Company
Directed by Wesley Enoch
Set and Costume Designer: Christina Smith
Lighting Designer: Trent Suidgeest
Sound Designer: Tony Brumpton
Projection Designers: optikal bloc
Performed by Caroline Brazier, Lucy Goleby, Damon Lockwood, Greg McNeill and Steven Rooke
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of WA
25 October – 9 November 2014
