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Griffin Theatre,
The Stables
until April 25
Bookings: 1300 306 776
How quickly does 25 years fly past? In 1983 I was a few years away from finishing high school when, with Mrs O’Connor’s English class, I went and saw The Kid.
Thinking back, it was the first Australian play I ever saw. I remember my best mate being ecstatic because a character in The Young Doctors had written it. It’s true.
At the time Michael Gow was best known for a continuing role in the popular soap. This was Gow’s first play and Away would soon follow.
Only recently Gow created Toy Symphony, his first play in a decade, but The Kid was the beginning and it still resonates.
The play tells the story of a couple of desperate teenagers with big hopes who have crammed into a small red car – which you pray doesn’t get pulled over – and are heading south to Sydney to get a compensation payout.
In a blazing Sydney summer (we actually used to get them), Aspro who is very ill, Dean who is way too healthy, and their sister Snake, are hoping, even as bushfires encircle the city, that life will get better. The same could be said for Donald, the small-town boy who Dean collected along the way.
At first the play gets you in with the ferocious vitality of the youths – the hopelessness undercuts you much later. From the top of the show director Tom Healey seems to revel in keeping the action tight and tense. The sexually charged scenes between Dean (Akos Armont) and Donald (Eamon Farren) work very well.
Healey hasn’t messed about and updated references. Sure, back in the day we came from intact families and the Russians were the baddies, but Healey has trusted that this play cuts through the decades and fashions. And it does, partly because teens and their angst haven’t really changed except now they dance to songs about dancing to Joy Division. They still form their own families when normal ones don’t exist.
But what is strongest in the production is actually the characterisations. Healey has his actors hit the stage with all the ballsy confidence and crafted skill you’d expect from actors straight out of drama school.
The cast are all stars-in waiting. As Dean, Armont delivers a terrific and relaxed performance, which suggests a truly amoral character.
Yael Stone who plays Desiree is gobsmackingly good.
It is great to hear an audience gasp. This is well worth a revisit.
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