Review - Everyman and the Pole Dancers

Every Man and the Pole Dancers

Final episode of an impossible theatrical soap opera – in four quarters

By Lech Mackiewicz

Produced by Auto Da Fe Theatre

Everyman – Maude Davey, The Grandmother – Jane Bayly, The Grandfather – Matthew Crosby, The Mother - Kathleen Doyle, The Father - Kazuto Shimamoto, The Daughter - Keina, Denda, The Son – Reece Vella, Director – Lech Mackiewicz, Coproducer – Matt Crosby, Visual installation artist – Naomi Ota, Composer – Noriko Tadano, Lighting Designer – Shane Grant

Mechanics Institute - Sydney Road Brunswick till 11 October 2014

Everyman and the Pole Dancers is a mischievous destabilizing Absurdist romp presented by a wonderful diverse and intriguing cast who are obviously having fun with the anarchistic text by Lech Mackiewicz. 

Daughter - Keina Denda  Photo  - Oscar Socias

The actors perform the serious material with unwavering commitment.  Mackiewicz as director must have a sense of humor that verges on the ridiculous to so successfully work with this gloriously eclectic troupe.  The result is a bit of a hologram bemusing yet satisfying.  

Maude Davey knits the whole together with a cigar-smoking Everyman.  She opens the show advising that the world is coming to an end. 

Chaotic and wildly funny at times it is a work that could have you dreaming crazy dreams for nights afterwards.  With marvelous and strange musical backing from Noriko Tadano playing the Shamisen one is entranced by six eccentric characters living their tacitly described last days in their ‘soap opera’ lives.  All in all this production has the strange capacity to touch ones psyche on a subliminal level.

Maude Davey as Everyman  Photo - Oscar Socias

The Grandparents who live chained to a street pole refuse to be rehoused in a retirement village.  This lack of compliance causes serious consternation.   The Mother (Kathleen Doyle) vehemently expresses her own fanatical truth that she is really a gay man. Generally all characters seem to lack significant agency, however, faced with pending doom all have a story to tell.  These solo pieces are like some sort of crazy post apocalypse Buddhist treaties that express importance of living in the moment to properly experience the value of life.  Some of the moments are riddled with loathing and conflict but what emerges from the whole is a heightened sense of humanity.

Davey also plays a number of subsidiary characters including a priest a prostitute and a psychiatrist.  Her easy relationship to her audience, whilst she flamboyantly performs, invests the work with the energy of engagement - to just the right measure.  Her capacity to present sexual antics on stage in a ‘sexy’ yet strangely neutral way adds a striking dimension of irony.

Noriko Tadano, Jane Bayly, Matt Crosby
Photo - Oscar Socias

Matt Crosby creates a perfect strange and unusual Grandfather and he uses his considerable vocal and physical skills to meet the Absurdist text with the crazy style required. 

There is a sense that Davey and Crosby lead the rest of the cast with supportive generosity.

Kazuto Shimamoto as the Father has a lovely warm sincere presence and is a delight to watch and listen to even though his characters monologue is riddled with torture and distress.  His Son as played by Reece Vella is lively and eager to please.  Jane Bayly embodies a dour self-contained Grandmother.   Kiena Denda’s Daughter is a stunning presence on stage.

Daughter - Kiena Denda Photo - Oscar Socias

With something of the Theatre of the 70 and 80s about it and truly rich with a Brectian staging (Naomi Ota – Visual Installation Artist) and hints of Artaudian madness and the relentlessness of Grotowski - Everyman and the Pole Dancers is surely the most baffling and rewarding offering in this years Fringe?

And it is not over yet – closing on the 11^th of October in Melbourne and due to open in another incarnation in Japan in the not to distant future.

Suzanne Sandow

(For Stage Whispers)