THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT
THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT, Workhorse Theatre Company at TAP Gallery, April 20-May 4, 2013. Photos by Michael Randall: Troy Harrison and Zoe Trilsbach; right: Zoe Trilsbach.
Workhorse Theatre Company - musical theatre performers Zoe Trilsbach and Troy Harrison and third year acting student Nick Bartlett - are among the newest little-companies-that-could and with this production they have well and truly arrived on Sydney's independent theatre map.
Choosing New Yorker Stephen Adly Guirgis's trickily titled seventh full length play marks them as wonderfully foolhardy (it's set on the upper West Side, features working class and Latino characters and couldn't possibly be Australianised) and, at the same time, sure of themselves. That is, sure in their capabilities - Trilsbach and Harrison play the lead roles of Veronica and Jackie, a couple whose drug habits, circumstances and life expectancy are equally gloomy, but whose hopes and dreams are dazzling and will put a lump in the throat of the most cynical.
The Workhorse trio has smarts and chutzpah too: with advice and encouragement from Mitchell Butel, an approach was made to Adam Cook to direct the play. Formerly artistic director of the State Theatre Company of SA and one of our best directors, Cook has only recently returned to Sydney and was wondering what to do next when the inquiry came through. The calibre of the piece and the actors involved apparently made his decision reasonably easy.
The consequence is that, unless miracles occur during the rest of 2013, The Motherf**ker With The Hat has to be right at the top of the list of best ensembles, best productions and best individual performances we are likely to see in Sydney this year. It's wildly funny and also tough and sad almost beyond bearable. Having only just caught up with it, I'm sorry it's finishing any minute because more people should see it - and it's packing the tiny TAP space - and I'd also like to see it again. However.
The playwright's work is not widely known in Australia, probably because it is so much of its place and people - and many of those people aren't Caucasian, which often seems to prove an unforgivable obstacle here. No surprise then that Wayne Blair directed and starred in Jesus Hopped The A Train (Downstairs Belvoir in 2007) but otherwise, Adly Guirgis is in the too-hard basket. A pity because he has a remarkable way with language and characters and in Motherf**ker he combines these with story that arises from both these elements into a coherent and absorbing whole.
The play opens with a verbal firework display as coke-snorting Veronica is cleaning up her apartment while talking to her mother on the phone. Her nasal, rat-a-tat, sing-song delivery is Bronx poetry to the max as she conducts her monologue with handset: "Ma? Okay, look, for the last time - my opinion? - you're still a good looking woman with a huge loving heart. And you're not hard to please - clearly. But you're dating a fucken big-time loser with a head like a actual fucken fish. [Pause] Okay, like please. Alls I'm gonna say Ma, when you see him tonight - take a moment. Take a breath. Take a real good look and just ask yourself in all honesty - do I wanna f**k him or fry him up with a little adobo and paprika?"
Rapped out through her nose with an upper lip stiffened by the hardest upbringing a girl could have, as Veronica Zoe Trilsbach sets the tone for what is to come and is partnered with similar intensity and timing by (real life partner) Troy Harrison as Jackie, a young man on parole and trying desperately to keep taking the 12 Steps to a sober life. He comes home, heartbreakingly thrilled that he's landed a job - on the lowest rung, but which has prospects. If he works hard he could end up as super of the building with a rent-free apartment, free cable and internet. He's brought gifts for Veronica, he's a romantic, he makes her cry with hope and joy.
These modest ambitions are key to their world - light years from the dollar- and class-driven glamour of Manhattan proper, just a few subway stops down the island. But even these objectives are fragile and elusive. The hat of the title is on the table and despite Veronica's protestations that it must belong to a friend of his, Jackie is convinced it belongs to the man of the title - who lives downstairs. His jealousy and suspicion fire the rest of the play - he leaves and goes to see his mentor and sponsor in the Plan, the inspirational older man Ralph (John Atkinson).
Ralph is the epitome of sobriety and kindness - he speaks in gentle fridge magnets and is a devotee of organic beverages. That his wife Victoria (Megan O'Connell) is somewhat bitter and twisted and as sardonic as an unsqueezed lemon should sound warning bells, but does not. In his fury and jealousy Jackie also turns to his cousin Julio (Nigel Turner-Carroll) and, as Julio points out, that's what he always does. Jackie is a selfish bastard, but to Julio he is also blood and they've been soul mates since forever.
The connections and interplay, discrete and intertwined stories of these five nobodies in nowhereland make approximately 100 hilarious and gut-wrenching minutes that rivet the attention from start to finish. Set in a series of more or less grim apartment living rooms (speedy change of lighting and curtains, a tidy up or re-slovenly arrangement of couch and table - set and costumes Dylan James Tonkin and lighting Kim Straatmeier) Motherf**ker is a triumph for its director and cast. Mention must also be made of dialect coach Jonathan Mill as the all-important Bronx voices - essential and in this non-stop, no hiding place production - are near flawless.
All in all Adam Cook has fashioned a polished, sustained and emotionally bold and truthful set of human beings with these actors and creatives and their response is thrilling. The outcome and twists are not obvious and it's a shame when it ends. It's also a shame that not more people will get to see it. It would be a shoe-in for the Best of Independent season at the Seymour Centre, if it were still in existence.
