THEATRE: A DISTRESSING SCENARIO
It’s been two years since the GFC hit, and yet we’re all still scratching our heads. What was it? Why did it happen? What the eff was with that stimulus package? And will the crash happen again? To a certain extent, many don’t care to know the answers. And so, it’s both an odd and oddly apt theme to build a two-part performance art slash theatre production on. A Distressing Scenario teams up post and version 1.0, both of whom admit their non-expertise to tackle an inherently economic equation. But while post converts this non-expertise to comic gold, version 1.0 somehow come off rather clueless.
Everything I Know About The Financial Crisis In One Hour finds post riffing on what they ‘reckon’ happened – a madcap verbal ticker tape of imaginary conspiracies and collective consumer memories. The Hasbro gaming empire collides with Granny May’s via the corn industry and Colonel Sanders. The girls – dressed in matching pastel polo shirts and lipstick-red hooker heels – fondly remember their 80s hey-day of yachts, caviar and champagne. Considering they all would’ve been in nappies at this time, this seems a clever way of saying: what does our generation really have to do with all of this?
Meanwhile, The Market is Not Functioning Properly intersperses speeches from our political leaders with the stories of average Australians, in a narrative around need and greed. Jane Phegan and Kym Vercoe of version 1.0 strut around stage in floor-length cocktail dresses, as they balance their bourgeois credit card debts – charities, gym memberships, even theatre subscriptions all face the chop. Ultimately the stories of these two women don’t adequately talk to, and interact with, the media installations, or even the over-riding themes. It’s a neat summary – but does it tell us something we didn’t already know?
Nonetheless, the intense physicality of version 1.0 works well with post’s chattiness and colloquial humour, and there are enough throughlines (champagne, commodities) to cohere the two together. This is an appropriate antidote to the mania of consumerism that sweeps the western world pre-Christmas. Invest in a ticket now.
Until Dec 19, Belvoir St Downstairs, 25 Belvoir St, Surry Hills, $24-32, 9699 3444, belvoir.com.au
