Adelaide Fringe 2015
Ego-Less-Ego-Ist
Presented by Creative Absence
Genre: Short Plays
Venue: The Crown And Anchor Hotel 196 Grenfell St, Adelaide
Festival: Adelaide Fringe
Low Down
The first half is about teenage girls’ lust and consequences, peer pressure and responsibility, or rather, avoidance of it. The second half is about alcohol-fuelled jealousy and murderous intent.
Review
This evening was two separate 1-act plays (Bang by Alex Petkova & Ego-Less-Ego-Ist by Bodhi Shribman-Delmann) back-to-back set on a small stage with minimal props, performed by very able actors. The first play started with three young women out for a night of sexual conquest by one egged on by the others, which was then followed by the morning after pregnancy test, the panic of a positive and what to do next advice by not very helpful mates and then the fear of how to tell mother. It captured the bravado and carelessness of youthful invulnerability in the first instance and then the very vulnerable fear and naivety of inexperienced young women caught up in a sobering reality check.
The second play started with two women in adjoining toilets and the Seinfeld scenario where Lara (the Elaine character) asks for some toilet tissue from the unhelpful Taylor in the next cubicle, who despite having plenty, denies her any, before finding a pistol. There followed the thread of was Taylor going to use the weapon on a love rival? or had she already? Exiting the cubicles, Taylor and Lara discuss jealousy, the man, the rival and the consequences if she used the gun, before taking a twist when talk of so much blood made me think the deed was already done, before the climax of the love rival appearing, the lights going out and a shot in the dark to end the play.
I liked the first act more than the second and so did the audience going by the loud laughter at some parts, which the actors very capably allowed to die down before continuing the performance (always a good sign). The second act was much darker, the subject of murder treated with the seriousness it needed, but I wasn’t quite sure if the jumps between will Taylor commit murder or had she already committed murder were deliberate jumps in time sequence.
I recommend the performance, especially for a young adult audience for whom these issues of sexual promiscuity, bravado, jealousy and consequence are aspects of contemporary dating. There were plenty of light-hearted laughs in the first act and while the second act was dark in subject, the whole evening was a credit to the acting of the three stars of the show, Suzannah Kennett Lister, Lauren Dempsey and Emma Kew and the direction by Alex Petkova.
