Pub Shorts

What; Skimpy Theatre's "Pub Shorts"
When; Monday, 5th Apri 2004
Where; The Railway Hotel, 44 Tydeman St, North Fremantle

Well, I haven't felt that out of place for a long time. I had arranged to meet my crowd at The Railway Hotel at 6:45ish so we could indulge in a beer and a counter meal before that show (which starts at 8:30, I was under the erroneous impression it started at 8). This meant I caught the last 15 mins of the skimpys. I had no idea Skimpy Theatre were going to take the idea that far, although it may just have been a coinidence. And either counter meals have changed a lot since I was at uni, or I have. Probably the later. Still, a sausage in a bun with all the trimmings, and chips and gravey for $3 is not to be sniffed at. Really.

Skimpys notwithstanding though, it really was a very entertaining night. I don't know if you can feel nostalgic about the "return" of pub theatre, because I don't know if it was ever that big (unless you count local post-grand-final football teams in drag or Working Class Man karaoke). And I can understand why; there are limitations to the venue, the stage is small, there is probably no backstage to speak of, I think of counted all of four lights and no real desk.

The trick is to pick the right plays, and thats what Skimy did. They where short so the audience didn't get restless out of their usual dark theatre comfort zone, they were very very funny and sometimes quite touching and performed by actors who are immediatley engaging to an audience and gained their trust the minute they walked out on stage. They were also incredibly simple (the plays, not the actors). The first show needed nothing but some pretty amazing sound (which was handled beautifully), the second needed a mattress and the third a table and two chairs.

The first play was the longest and featured all three of the actors (Damon Lockwood, Claire Hooper and Mike Frencham), it was funny and well paced, and with a few in jokes about "crappy co-op" that the theatre-ies in the audience really appreciated. At times, when an actor was on the floor, it was a little difficult to see what was going on because of the setup of the tables and chairs for the audience. And I thought some of the "I don't remember what has just happened" changes could have been a bit sharper. But it had us laugh'n.

The second show was probably my favourite. It's been a little while since I personally have seen Claire Hooper and especially Damon Lockwood do anything that wasn't at least mostly wacky. Which is great because they're both so good at it, but we always love to see the extent of our talent here in Perth (and to see our talent extend themselves) and this was a different little show for them. Just two people post-coitally talking about their "relationship". Something about it was so familar, which I think was a function of both the writing and the completely natural performances. I was reminded of when I saw Cat Commander and Liam Ryan directed by Tony Petani at the Blue Room in "Monogamy". You just felt like you knew these peope and what they were feeling. The direction was perfect, understated but not ever uncomfortable despite the small stage and all the getting up and down from a mattress on the floor, and grappling (!) to contend with. I was there with a director I consider to be a bit of an expert and she was blown away by the direction. The show was just great.

The third show, Dave Ryding's "Chat" was just plain funny. Mike Frencham has degrees of slow realisation I didn't know existed. I think most of us have about four degrees from "Hang on..." to "...Oh bugger.", he has about twelve. And the way the show was written and directed, you could just tell from the beginning, before you got the punchline, that something was wrong. I don't want to give the show away by saying more. It was subtle but it made the show. There was one moment, a "first-physical-contact-between-two-people-and-even though-it's-really-innocent-it's-still-a-big-deal" moment that just broke my heart but was absolutely hilarious at the same time.

I had a great time. I think it's only on for a few more nights but get down to Freo and give it a look if you can. We need more theatre like this; three actors, three writers, two directors, a stage, some lights, a truely amazing sound guy, simple costumes and off you go. And beer. Lots of beer.

(Apologies, as ever, for the inevitable spelling mistakes. If you could email the corrctions directly to me this time, instead of posting them on this board, I'm sure the other readers would appreciate it.)

Leah