THEATRE: ROMMY

 “It’s about two crazy sisters who have been living in a sewer since they were children,” says playwright Nick Coyle of his latest work, Rommy. Into this subterranean world washes a woman who has lost her memory – a, “blank slate, an observer,” – who realises through song that she is not as nice as what she thought she was. And what of the title? “Rommy is the name of their god – their made-up god. He is a moody god. He sort of goes up and down. He is volatile.”

From the sound of things, Rommy promises to be just as surreal and darkly comical as Coyle’s past outings, Hammerhead (is dead) – replete with monkey skeletons and GI Joe figurines come to life,  and Simply Fancy – with Forests of Apathy, Home Alone renditions and space creatures. It’s certainly not your usual dose of drama; one critic called Coyle “pantomime-on-crack.” Words trip, worlds spin on tiny stages; his imaginative ink-well is one part pop-culture wasteland, one part absurdist post-apocalypsia. “It’s what I want when I go see a play because there’s plenty of realism,” says Coyle. “Plays are a kind of place where you can say anything – and if it’s good enough people will believe it.”

This place is one of the future – the sisters would be children now. “They went underground to escape some kind of disaster that turned out not to be that disastrous,” says Coyle – and certainly with the end-is-nigh rhetoric swirling in the ether, it’s a scenario that is believable. Whether we will be reduced to eating ratmeat is yet to be seen. Either way, Coyle promises, “A bloody awesome night at the theatre.”

Jul 15-Aug 7, Old Fitzroy Theatre, 129 Darling St, Woolloomooloo,$17-25 (beer, laksa, show), 1300 GETTIX, rocksurfers.org