Endgame - Kalamunda Dramatic Society (9 March 2025)

Life can be absurd. Chaotic. Meaningless. Repetitive. Fraught with setbacks and obstacles. This may sound bleak. But that doesn't mean it isn't honest. Or filled with dark humour and small moments of triumph. 

Most stories lean towards the light. Towards narrative structures and arcs that are familiar and comforting. Storytelling that is ingrained on the human psyche. Aristotle's Poetics. The Hero's Journey. Save the Cat! I'm from that school of writers. Well, maybe not the last one. 

Samuel Beckett is decidedly not. His work stubbornly refuses to conform to those traditional norms. It is absurd, chaotic, and repetitive. It's also often repetitive and bleak. And absurd. Oftentimes chaotic. 

It's a style that can be alienating and confronting. There aren't the normal storytelling rhythms you expect - not in narrative structure, not in the flow and cadence of dialogue. Nor in tidy resolutions or convenient character arcs.

What there is though is adherence to theme. A sort of existential dread as we battle those darker forces in everyday life; from the absurd to the meaningless. The audience grapples for meaning mirroring the characters' own struggle. 

In an intimate theatre such as KADS there's an unspoken compact in a play like Endgame. We are trapped with the characters. We may suffer. We may get frustrated or confused. We laugh at the absurdity and the bleak humour. We might empathise with the plight of these characters. If we pay attention we could actually discern the thread of a more conventional story that is being told; hidden in fragments and ellipses, and the whims of what is possibly an unreliable narrator. At the very least one that delights in bombast. It's a fascinating concoction that challenges an audience and forces us to think. 

It strikes me as a play that demands great patience from its director and cast. Stage directions are performed at an almost metronomic pace which requires an impressive level of discipline. The same with the delivery of dialogue. The pause is the master of all here. In the space between lines. In the stillness between movement. 

The story is set in a place that feels timeless; where the world as we know it has ended for reasons we will never glean. A blind, infirmed man with a cruel intellect - Hamm (Neale Paterson) - who is confined to an armchair set on casters, is engaged in a battle of wills with his servile companion who tends to him and cannot sit - Clov (Zane Alexander). All the while, Hamm's elderly and legless parents - Nagg (Malcolm Douglas) and Nell (Amanda Watson) - who are stuffed in large dustbins watch on helplessly. All of them face an inevitable end the same as the chess pieces and board that adorn the set. 

The metaphor is clear - the chessboard is a finite space and the pieces within it can only move in certain predetermined ways until the game finally comes to a conclusion. Hamm is the King who is to be attended to at all times and whose movement is minimal. Clov, I suspect, is perhaps best suited as a Bishop who can only move awkwardly, legs splayed apart, all diagonal. Nagg and Nell feel like hapless pawns though the dustbins are reminiscent of castles.

It's a handsome and striking set credited to Kresna, Melisa Musulin, Leigh Siragusa, Peter Bloor, Peter Neaves and Virigina Moore Price who also directs here alongside Rosalind Moore. It features two portholes set high on either side of the stage walls - lit to represent the dark/ocean; the other the earth/light. Again, the symmetry with the chessboard is clear. Also two large dustbins that sit atop a table, and Hamm's armchair. 

Makeup and costuming is exaggerated for effect - Nagg and Nell especially looking grotesquely decrepit. There is a sense of decay as the end approaches. The lighting design is very atmospheric as it conceals almost as much as it reveals at times. The porthole lighting is beautifully symbolic.

The acting is excellent. Neale Paterson holds our attention as Hamm even though the character is largely unable to move and his eyes are shielded by sunglasses. It's his voice that commands attention here as Hamm cajoles and belittles Clov whilst pleading for his painkillers and occasionally undercutting theatrical virtuosity with the underplayed aside. Again, the pause is used to great effect.

Zane Alexander is at the top of his game with a wonderfully judged physical performance that is exacting in its repetition and pace. We feel Clov's dilemma - he desperately wants to leave... but where would he go? There is a delicate balance of reproachment, reluctant compliance, and utter exasperation which Alexander cycles through with great skill.

Malcolm Douglas and Amanda Watson are the offbeat comic foil with tragic overtones. Douglas delivers a cutting tale about a man and a tailor with a gloriously dark punchline. Watson tugs briefly at our heartstrings in a wistful manner that belies the darkness. 

Director Virginia Moore Price, who also did the lighting design and was sound and lighting operator for Sunday's matinee, and her co-director Rosalind Moore, stick to their guns in terms of pacing and embracing the inherent absurdism of the piece. Nothing is rushed. There are no apologies here for a style that some audience members may blanch at. 

I confess, it took me an entire day pondering what I had seen to slowly grasp the meaning of the play, as incomplete as that may be. In this way it's like that other lauded play that confounded me last year until it all made sense in the Moore directed Top Girls. It took me a little longer this time! 

Endgame is on at KADS in Kalamunda until 22 March 2025. Be patient with it. Chew over it. Come to your own conclusions and epiphanies. It's part of an encouraging trend in community theatre - putting on complex and challenging works that are a little outside the norm. I love the confidence that signals. 

F**k Decaf - The Cutting Room Floor (10 February 2015)

With Fringe expanding to over 500 shows this year various locations have been pressed into service to hold the staggering amount of activity that is going on. One of these is the Frisk Small Bar in Francis Street which was perfect for this witty observation of relationships, how we change and, dare I say it, grow with the passage of time.

My inescapable conclusion at the end of the performance was that a smart, well written script in the hands of (two) talented actors is a recipe for an excellent evening of theatre.

I missed seeing this the first time around last year so was delighted it had another life at Fringe in 2015. The writer in question is Tyler Jacob Jones who had a stellar festival last year with Point & Shoot: a new musical which he co-wrote and starred in winning major awards and successfully touring on the east coast. This was his next script and talking to Jones he felt some pressure to follow-up Point & Shoot’s achievements.

In this he has succeeded admirably even restraining himself by including only one song (we won’t quibble about a burst of Leaving on a Jet Plane) - the Des’ree, um, classic, Life (okay, I confess, my pop sweet spot is more the 80s and I missed the whole ‘piece of toast’ thing!).

That song (which is revisited several times) serves as a shared memory for friends Kate (Ann-Marie Biagioni) and Ruby (Amanda Watson) though what deeper philosophical meanings did Des’ree really mean with those lyrics? I’ll leave that for Kate, Ruby and eminent scholars to decide.

The two friends periodically meet in the same cafe over a span of several years to share the highs and lows of their relationships, travels, and expectations. Kate is the sexually adventurous one while Ruby, who initially appears quite grounded, suffers through a series of relationships some more doomed than others. They talk, spar, bicker and reminisce as only good friends can. Their insights and experiences are funny but have more than a healthy dose of deft observation.

Biagioni and Watson are both excellent, the former’s character all brash and in your face; the latter’s becoming increasingly a bundle of nerves and doubts. In this, coffee plays a major part. As for decaf, well, the title gives you a pretty good idea what Kate thinks about Ruby’s conversion at one point to Pilates, vegetarianism, and a caffeine free lifestyle!

The device that sets this all up is the dinging of a bell by the waiter (Monty Sallur) that announces the end of one scene and the jump forward in time to the next. The intimate setting means the audience is almost on top of the actors with a sense we’re eavesdropping on their conversations. Each vignette reveals more about the two of them and gives both actors the opportunity to add impressive layers to their portrayals.

Most importantly, this is flat out hilarious. The moment Biagioni storms outside the bar and harangues Watson by mobile while stomping up and down Francis Street is priceless. Likewise, the fight they have that ends up leaving the small performance space a mess of coffee beans, salt, plastic cups and every manner of detritus is realistically frantic. If you sit in the first two rows you might even cop some friendly fire.

I loved this sense of play. Biagioni and Watson are totally in sync with each other and the surroundings - even the accidental breaking of a ceramic coffee mug was used to great effect. I give kudos to Frisk for allowing such an exuberant and messy show on their premises and to the actors for embracing that freedom.

There was a moment of magic towards the end that launched this into another level of intensity and possibilities - Ruby becomes aware of the device of the ringing bell. We then witness a bravura explosion of rapid fire scenes as that bell starts dinging overtime! The ensuing sense of timing and flexibility was impressive and had the audience in stitches.

This is the sort of show that is ideal for Fringe – it’s smart, witty, wonderfully performed and written, with a sense of confidence and playfulness that audiences find irresistible, certainly the one I was with on opening night. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Directed by Scott Corbett, Written by Tyler Jacob Jones, and starring Ann-Marie Biagioni, Amanda Watson and Monty Sallur, F**k Decaf has seven more shows from tonight until Sunday 22^nd February.