At the conclusion of the new play by Will Adamsdale and Chris Branch, “The Receipt”, there is a wordless sequence involving filing cabinets and small models depicting a faux cityscape on stage. Along with being very cleverly staged, this is a beautiful moment and is strongly reminiscent of the early work of Australian Visual Artist Ricky Swallow. Like Ricky, Will and Chris have created a magnificently surreal artwork that looks at the reality of modern day man, blanching away the detail and stylising the perspective in a clever, funny and beautiful show.
The premise of the show involves an anthropological view of modern day man, from a futuristic perspective. Not unlike an experience you would expect from attending a museum display, the fictional anthropologists have pieced together a picture of modern society, filling in details and making suppositions about some of the more absurd aspects of the world around us, often with hilarious results.
The story goes on to tell the story of Wylie, and ordinary office worker who becomes obsessed with finding the original source of a piece of paper, a receipt, that he found on the ground. Will Adamsdale, best known in Australia for his 2005 visit to this festival with his critically acclaimed show “Jackson’s Way”, takes the primary role of narrator and Wylie himself. Chris Branch is at once Will’s off sider and yet as center stage as Will, as he fills in for all the peripheral characters that Wylie meets, as well providing the sound effects which become like a whole new character again. It’s almost impossible to fault these energetic and endearing performances.
In a way this show turns traditional surrealism in on itself, placing an overlay of surrealism on reality that changes the way we look at things around us, holding up aspects of society that we’ve come to accept in our world as normal, as the sheer absurdities that they are.
Above all else this is extremely funny, with a kind of humour that is resonant and enduring. I am left with a deep admiration for this piece and there is so much more I could say about it as it is just so richly layered. Just go and see it yourself. I implore you.
“The Receipt” runs from Tuesday to Sunday until the 28th April at The Malthouse Theatre. For booking details go to the MICF website