CAMP
CAMP, Ensemble Theatre, 26 September-26 October 2013. Photos by Natalie Boog: above - Jennifer Corren, Karen Pang and Michelle Doake, Jamie Oxenbould (behind). Right: David Terry.
Many in the opening night audience for Gary Baxter's new play appeared to have painful and vivid experience of camping holidays. Their laughter was of recognition and disbelief. That first world people get themselves into the gruesome situations that happen when a tent is involved is a mystery. As one unhappy camper says, while surveying the over-crowded holiday venue, "this is like a refugee camp".
Director Mark Kilmurry writes of the black(ish) comedy: "I laughed, I recognised, I agreed. Why camp at all? Well hopefully this evening will explain to those that love it how hellish it is for those who don't." Camp certainly does that - both intentionally and unintentionally.
Three families arrive at a coastal camp site for their annual get-together. Weather, traffic and existential malaise and grizzling kids (an off-stage presence) have all conspired to get the holiday off to a scratchy start. Danny (David Terry) and Maggie (Michelle Doake) are at marital odds anyway; Peter (Jamie Oxenbould) and Julie (Jennifer Corren) are not only helicopter parents but also Peter is so obsessive compulsive he would drive Pope Francis to drink. And Cynthia (Karen Pang) and Jack (Ben Ager) are so laid-back they're practically horizontal.
The comedy kicks in quickly as Danny and Maggie row over the unpacking and erection of a tent and discover they've brought a black snake with them. The unseen snake scene is the play's funniest and least obvious set-up; the rest is comedy cliche and not particularly funny although many in the audience found it all hilarious.
The play itself is an uneven mix with quite dark domestic drama sitting uneasily within moments of slapstick and limp one-liners. There are echoes of Christos Tsolkas's The Slap - with its contemporary friendship and relationship angst and first world problems - and further echoes of Mike Leigh's Nuts in May but they are faint. The mix remains a mix and only rarely gels into a coherent whole.
Danny and Maggie - the pivotal characters around whose tent beers are drunk and the action is centred - are troubled; they arrive snarling and snapping and go downhill from there. David Terry is fortunate to be paired with Michelle Doake. She is a very fine comic actress whose command of pathos is also considerable, but she and he are lumbered - at a guess - with the instruction to begin with the emotional volume turned up to 9 on a scale of 10; and therefore, there is nowhere else to go. All nuance, light and shade are lost or abandoned as they yell and bellow to lesser and lesser effect. It's a waste of a wonderful actress and to her credit that she's as amusing as she often is. Her performance also highlights how very much better she is than her fellow inmates and this is both a joy and a problem in itself.
At 15 minutes over two hours, including an interval, the play is in desperate need of cutting. The frequent sequences where hapless cast members stand about pointing into the audience telling us what they're seeing should be the first to hit the floor. So too should the repetition and teasing out of tedious daily detail. Urgent attention should also be paid to the absence of logic and reason (vital to the craziest of comedies.) Cut to 80 or 90 minutes, straight through, Camp could be fashioned into a dark comedy of relationships, friendship and holidays in hell. In this iteration it's helped along by a nicely tongue-in-cheek, old-fashioned design (painted backdrop, grassy stage) by Anna Gardiner and effective lighting by Matthew Marshall.
As has already been said, many on opening night found much to laugh at, there could be an awful lot more, however, if the playing were not so wearyingly broad. Less is more when it comes to shouting. And the dark edge to the summer holidays could also be better explored than is hinted here.
