Through five themed parties, 21 – ‘cause you’ll only turn it once! explored the rather fragile relationship between a group of friends and how they negotiated the milestone birthdays of each. We witnessed breakups, misunderstandings, party disasters, embarrassing speeches and plenty of fights.
The script placed together a group of highly dysfunctional and wildly differing personalities to create maximum tension, thus plenty of laughs both at their relative grotesqueness and at the messy situations they found themselves in. The cast built upon the caricatures to ensure every last ounce of humour was extracted but ensuring that they were still people you would encounter in the real world. There were a number of memorable peripheral characters that threatened to steal the show and provide some nice little surprises.
It employed plenty of farce in its structure and kept the laughs rolling throughout. There were some references unfamiliar to me (the old bugger that I am!) that had the rest of the punters in stitches. The audience I was a part of seemed to be comprised of people in their early twenties, the intended target of this show, so they got little bit more from the show than I but there was plenty of other material and lots of humourous conflict to keep people of any age amused.
In attempting to resolve all the conflicts, as most farce based comedy does, and tie up all the loose ends they staged a rather odd final scene by introducing two new characters to impart words of wisdom. While this was a highly irregular situation to place the characters in, it did manage to provide a last burst of hilarious material before a short series of epilogues. It wasn’t a particularly conventional way to end a show but it paid off and clearly embraced the spirit of Fringe.
Using themed parties for each scene meant that plenty of costume changes were required, but this was handled seamlessly. As we faced each blackened stage, phone machine messages to the birthday boy or girl kept us entertained as we eagerly awaited the next party. A giant party invitation on an easel helped to set the scene and we prepared for the action to unfold.
The performances by the cast were top notch. They were exaggerated just enough to heighten things comedically. I noticed that some of the cast seemed to be stifling laughs but covered it up well and remained in character. It good to see that they were enjoying themselves on stage and their enthusiasm was infectious.
As a debut performance by theatre troop Crockpot Productions, 21… was an impressive play. It was a fun romp through minefield of entering adulthood that is sure to find an eager audience.
For more info and booking details go to the Melbourne Fringe Festival website