Okay, down to business and this is a fusion of two of my loves so chances are I was pretty much in the bag for this straight away. There's a raucous crowd in attendance with lots of familiar faces from a certain training academy I hear is pretty good.
The show sets me up with a beautiful misdirection early on, poking fun at the whole "sport is war" trope which I loathe (no, no it isn't). There's affection and cheekiness here before a serious thematic strand emerges pretty early on - this is about fathers and sons dressed up in a sports metaphor which also explores the mental as well as physical side of competitive sport. My Field of Dreams, Hoosiers, and any number of sports movies-loving brain kicks in and I'm feeling it.
The story trajectory is well trodden as most sports tales are. It's the characters who are the differentiating point and some rather spectacular choreography that is frenetic and precise with a footy in hand and not one single drop. Which I have to say, given how furious the movement becomes at times, is worth BOG honours and three Brownlow votes. No, I'm not going to explain that to the people in the audience who alarmingly claimed to "know nothing about football" as we were filing out.
That's the thing about sport though. You don't need to know because football may not be war but it IS great theatre. They just have much bigger venues then your standard theatre. Oh, and all that sponsorship and media coverage and... sigh... I digress.
The story in short: star player for the Dolphins James "FootyBoy" Chappell (Michael Kavanagh) suffers a knock that takes him down to his own sunken place where his father, football legend Bill Chappell (Brad Francis) awaits. The son suffers by comparison to live up to the legend who hectors him to be better and claims ownership of his achievements. There are two arcs here - will James become his own man and will Bill see the error in his ways? As Fremantle doyen Chris Connolly might have once said, it's all about the journey.
Meanwhile team captain Hands (Alice Schlipalius) - in this world the AFL and AFLW have seemingly merged into a super league - motivates the other players, Butter (Summer Rule) and Cox (Jai Craig-Fraser) with positive reinforcement, self-affirmations, and the use of crystals. She herself deals with a back injury which leads to... you can pretty much guess where that's heading but it doesn't matter because everything is done with great flair and humour.
Schlipalius milks the sincerity in the "straight man role"; Craig-Fraser brings a goofy physicality and charm; with Rule showcasing exceptional comic timing, letting beats breathe in a very funny performance. Kavanagh gets the emotive arc which he handles well while Francis lends a little mongrel to Bill before a startling transformation. I don't know which cornfields his ghost has been hanging out in but it's waaaaaay funkier than Shoeless Joe's!
My only quibble is that there seemed to be a beat missing. Bill's arc is clear but the catalyst for the change is not there for mine. It felt more out of story convenience than character. Having said that, the subsequent scene is affecting but it's one thing I'd look at in the writing. What brings him back to his son? Otherwise the ending is every footy players' fantasy - to [redacted] which leaves everyone with a feel good sensation at final bows.
I enjoyed this a lot. It's funny, fast and furious; shows clear affection for the sport and the types of characters who inhabit that world. There's a serious message under the humour about how our mental health can be adversely affected by expectations and negative reinforcement; how we can better manage that; and the power of forgiveness.
FootyBoy is directed by Art Walsh, David Blue, and Natasha Pearson with a relentless pace and energy. Walsh and Blue are also co-writers. The show is on at the State Theatre Centre as part of Fringe World until 8 February.
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