Rhomboid – REVIEW

When you Google the word ‘rhomboid’ one of the first things that come’s up is “What causes rhomboid pain?” Well I’m pleased to report that this new play from emerging Chinese/Australian playwright Eric Jiang causes no such pain whatsoever.

Unless you laugh until you injure yourself, which, I suppose could happen while watching this play.

However, more notably, a rhomboid is also a shape, specifically a quadrilateral in which the opposite sides are parallel, and the opposite angles are equal, which is in this case, what the title refers to.

Thoroughly enjoyable and fun, the play follows the formative years and consequent adventures of Xavier (Richard Wu) and Sebastian (Luke Visentin) as they navigate through life and their sometimes loving, sometimes not, relationship with each other. Indeed, the shapes we form as we grow and the people we choose to grow with is a conscious narrative throughout the piece.

Directed by Sammy Jing, the play employs minimal staging and props, with clever use of costume doing most of the work to depict setting and movement through situations and time (well done to Costume Designer Lily Mateljan). A few scenes touch on the lived experience of interracial dating and the experience of growing up Queer and Asian/Australian, and those scenes shine as being particularly genuine.

Three actors are on stage pretty much throughout (all other love interests/roles are taken up by Joseph Raboy who certainly knows how to steal a scene or two) but it is the love, or not love, story of the two main characters that dominates the storyline.

All the characters depicted definitely fall into the Gen Z age range, and the levels of communication and life skills for that age range is expertly, although a little frustratingly, portrayed with often painful accuracy. Communication (or lack of) through texting, drunken nights out, awkward dancing and an enthusiasm, yet inability, to connect are all thrown into the mix.

There are certainly a few laugh out loud (or rather LOL) or FML (look that one up) moments, but really the play is a love, or not love, story very much in the ‘will they/wont they’, Ross and Rachel (without a doubt no one depicted in this play will get that reference from this Gen X’er) kind of way.

If I’m honest, I wasn’t wholeheartedly convinced of the chemistry between the two, otherwise marvellous, male leads, but the play is enjoying a run of a few weeks, so it would be interested to see how that develops between the actors as they sink into their roles.

August 25 – September 9

KXT on Broadway, 181 Broadway (cnr Mountain St), Ultimo

www.kingsxtheatre.com