Sidetrack are a group from Sydney and by the names of those involved, and the content of this show, the group are made up of Greek Australians. The performance is a series of nine vignettes with each one a story about the relationship between Greek mothers and their sons. It took awhile to notice that there were only three performers, because they are so talented and versatile, using costume and wigs to create many different characters. Some of these bordered on the “Wogs out of Work” type stereotypes, but most were a bit more grounded and interesting.
The first story was of an endearing Greek mother out shopping and the audience plays the part of a friend she has bumped into and is telling about the meal she will cook tonight where she will meet her son’s ‘Aussie’ girlfriend. This was funny and lovely though I don’t think it said anything new but perhaps little has changed. There was a rap number “Marry George Rap” that didn’t work at all because rap is all about the words and we could not hear or understand what was being said, whether it was sound or bad enunciation, I’m not sure. Amongst the funny stories such as www.marrygeorge.com where a mother interviews potential wives for her son, and the son who is pleading his Mother’s forgiveness for daring to move out of home at thirty there were two more serious ones and the odd surprise.
The main thing that bothered me was that these Greek mothers don’t seem to have changed very much since I was young. I was interested to find out about today’s mothers, the women who I would have gone to school with, who have teenagers now, are they different? There is only a hint of this in the penultimate story set in an elderly home. The elderly mother was born in Australia to Greek parents, she was a more relaxed Australian style mother, despite having had 9 children, but now none are willing to take care of her. The suggestion is that the children have become anglicized and so disconnected with their family and go off to live their own lives and perhaps this is why Greek mothers are so controlling. The final story was set in Ancient Greece and was perhaps suggesting that little has changed. This was a very enjoyable, extremely well performed, production, though I felt I lost quite a lot of the punch lines from my ignorance of the Greek language. There is a lot of Greek spoken in this show and there were a lot of extra laughs coming from audience members who were getting the in jokes. This is an excellent Comedy Festival show aimed at the Greek community, but there is also a lot to enjoy for the rest of us. Worth a trip out to the North Melbourne Town Hall.
For booking details go to It’s A Mother!