THE BEAST

By Diana Simmonds

July 31 2016

THE BEAST, Ambassador Theatre Group Asia Pacific and Red Live at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 29 July-21 August 2016. Photography by Ken Nakanishi: above, l-r Heidi Arena, Alison Bell, Rohan Nichol, Christy Whelan Browne, Toby Truslove and Eddie Perfect; right: Alison Bell and Eddie Perfect

Eddie Perfect’s first full-length play is a curiosity. It was commissioned by Melbourne Theatre Company and staged there in 2013 to multi-starred approval and deliriously chortling audiences. It arrives in Sydney under the aegis of a commercial producer, subliminally trailing all that praise behind it, and yet it’s hard to reconcile the plaudits with what was offered on opening night.

The first thing to note, if you’re the sort who takes reviewers’ stars and producer’s carefully edited snippets of past reviews without a pinch of salt, is that it’s an entirely different production. The work of the earlier Melbourne cast, director and creatives is not what you’ll get in Sydney.

So, what do you get? In the program, director Simon Phillips says The Beast is acute social comedy at the iconoclastic extremity, and he has loosely bracketed Perfect with names such as David Williamson, Alan Ayckbourn, Neil Simon, Yasmina Reza, Joe Orton, Martin McDonough,  “or even Ionesco”. And in “forcing his characters into scenarios of pseudo Grecian, foul-mouthed violence and near pornographic passion” he further links the characters with Barry Humphries, Graeme Kennedy and Norman Gunstan (sic). All of which suggests the usually sane Phillips had been at the Kool-Aid before writing his director’s notes if he really sees these names in the fumes.

Make no mistake, there is probably enough social satire and comedy and face-achingly bad politically incorrect jokes to make a sharpish 90 minutes of conventional entertainment. As it is, The Beast spreads itself thinly across two and a half hours with interval and runs out of steam at regular intervals. 

The opening premise is that three friends go fishing for the day and are marooned at sea with the barmy boat skipper. In this unlikely setting a tirade-cum-treatise on Sydney property prices and the wider economy sets the tone for the rest of the show: for Perfect’s hobby horses to be focused upon and ridden to death.

After the friends are rescued and return to civilisation their near-death experience causes the usual dominoes of life change – in this instance, tree-change. They all, with wives in tow, turn their backs on shallow city living and take to the sustainable, honest, ethical, grow-your-own life of country dwellers.

It quickly becomes apparent – to the audience at least – that they have all fallen head-first into the slurry pit of not realising you can’t run away from your problems or your own nasty traits and bad behaviour: you simply take it all with you.

Earnestly savouring the organic lifestyle and deciding they must take the final step of honestly, ethically and sustainably owning and slaughtering their own meat, are the passive-aggressive Simon (Rohan Nichol), his gorgeous but brainless bimbo wife Gen (Christie Whelan Browne); the well meaning but apparently piss weak Rob (Toby Truslove) and his earth mother wife Sue (Heidi Arena); and finally, the socially-challenged Baird (Eddie Perfect) and his wife, the sardonic and way too smart for her own good Marge (Alison Bell).

The Beast is really a series of linked comedy sketches of animal husbandry, amateur slaughter, dinner party snobbery, wine snobbery, relationship troubles, flirtation troubles, and appealingly appalling jokes (Holocaust, racism, sexism, misanthropy, misogyny, misandry and so on), but a two-and-a-half hour play it is not. The first half closer of man (and woman) versus wild (well, tame and tethered) is potentially and almost the funniest but is so overdone and stretched that in the end it’s simply wearying. 

A crucial flaw in the latent laugh-a-thon is that when a bad taste grenade is thrown (“I don’t like black people” for instance) it’s not followed up in the character or plot thread. Consequently it simply explodes and – possibly for the sole black woman in the audience and perhaps for others – causes injury rather than the catharsis and enlightenment to be found in nightmares such as Chris Lilley’s S.mouse, Jonah Takalua or their great-granddad, Alf Garnett.

There are sharp observations and moments of low farce, but they’re most often blunted by the heavy hand of writer and director. The latter can’t be forgiven for ignoring the first rule of farce: that to succeed and cause weeps of laughter it must be played straight and serious. That this is true can be seen in Alison Bell’s performance which is absolutely on the money and as subtle as it is utterly wicked and hilarious.

Christy Whelan Browne is the production’s other star as she holds on to the truth of her sad and silly but not stupid character. Those who left at the interval missed the best of her performance but nevertheless, can’t be blamed for scarpering. 

The men all have their moments, particularly Rohan Nichol and Toby Truslove, and Eddie Perfect’s default persona suits the blue collar needs of the good bloke with a wine nose sting in his tail. And Heidi Arena effortlessly calls upon her Audrey Gordon impersonation to good effect, but surely could be so much more if encouraged. Last, but not least, Peter Houghton takes on multiple roles from the boat captain to a vigneron, a farmer and – seriously dodgy scene because it’s witless – a male babysitter.

It has to be said the set (Dale Ferguson) doesn’t help them. It’s a lumpen mish-mash of white sectionals that have to be wheeled around and reshaped in lengthy strobe-lit scene changes and it’s as clumsy as it sounds. 

On opening night the enthusiastic but sporadic laughter came from actors’ claques and family and fans. For me the best moments belonged to the blackest and least socially acceptable jokes, Christy Whelan Browne and Alison Bell. And the pre-show moment when many and varied mobile phone rings echoed around the auditorium before a single gunshot was followed by silence. That was funny.