THEATRE: UNIT 46
Image: Unit 46 offers audiences the guilty pleasure of playing voyeur as two not-entirely-lovable feuding neighbours fight it out.
The Germans have given us a lot to be grateful for over the years: VW beetles and associated car-trip rounds of “punch buggy”; Oktoberfest, in all its be-lederhosened glory; and of course schadenfreude – that immaculate term for the sensation of delight we sometimes feel at the misfortune of others.
It’s a concept not lost on writer Mick Barnes, whose play Unit 46 brings us two apartment-dwellers who are united only in their mutual contempt, and who each seem to enjoy nothing more than making the other miserable.
What the pair lack in neighbourly love, they more than make up for in similarity of circumstance. Tim (Leof Kingsford-Smith), of the eponymous unit 46, has fancied himself a misunderstood genius since he was fired five years ago over a letter his employers found objectionable. Diane (Lucy Miller), who lives directly below, in unit 36, is an English teacher – or, well, she was. These days, obsessing over her romantic and professional failings has become a fulltime job.
An inspired stage set up – the apartments are artfully merged into one, and the feuding neighbours often unknowingly come within swiping range – gives Kingsford-Smith and Miller the chance to show off their perfect timing and clever use of space. The Factory Theatre proves the perfect stage for this piece; its intimacy is perfectly suited to Unit 46’s invitation to peer into others’ most intimate moments (and yes, it does get very intimate).
Through a series of monologues and jibes, the pair muse separately-but-together about their love lives, rejection, and the general unfairness of it all. For a play that styles itself as a comedy, it’s fairly bleak stuff – Barnes’s at times strained writing is more the sort to elicit wry smiles than hearty guffaws. And while the guilty pleasure of revelling in the pair’s misfortune and the chance to play peeping tom are enticing, Unit 46 teeters at times on the brink of tragedy. An innovative – if not terribly uplifting – look at the daily triumphs and sadness of a couple of modern-day misfits.
Until 19 Jul. The Factory Theatre. $28, 9550 3666 or www.unit46.com.au
