A play that seemed to be based loosely on an episode of Cheers entitled Bar Bet, Love in the Time of Milk Bars tells the story of Billy who risks losing his milk bar over a drunken bet. In order to win the bet, he must marry Pamela Anderson. Unlike the saccharine world of TV sitcoms, things in this story soon take some weird and disturbing turns.
This play was a musical comedy that featured a slightly different format than that of regular musical theatre. One major eccentricity was a number of monologues delivered in rhyming couplets. They gave the script an odd feel, particularly when it seemed that some of the rhymes had been crowbarred in. Flashbacks were handled in an interesting way; conveyed via an audio track of the memory.
All the songs were sung a cappella which was a little distracting at the beginning, but you soon eased into the subsequent songs. The songs were also rather devoid of actual humour in their lyrics, save for the odd comically disturbing line in some of the later tunes. Most of humour in these songs was a result of the way in which they were delivered, be it in a silly falsetto or in a psychopathic manner. Each actor displayed a specific range and singing style that suited each individual character but sat strangely beside each other when they sang in unison.
The script itself was not exactly wall to wall laughs, most of it being rather dry. Scenes featuring the drinking buddy Jonesy and sexist Gary were humourous through the antics of these larger than life, antisocial characters. The later gruesome scenes generated a fair amount of nervous laughter, provided giggles through plenty of exaggerated absurdity and some of the bizarrely comical props kept the humour quotient up.
One major gripe with this production was the excessive moving of furniture to set up each scene. All hands were on deck to ensure that the changes were as quick as possible but the sets were possibly too elaborate for quick changes. Worse still was the fact that the audience were left looking at a darkened stage without even background music to occupy them.
Love in the Time of Milkbars was definitely a different theatrical experience that delivered a reasonable amount of humour as well as plenty of twists and turns. While not being a cackfest, this play clearly embraced that spirit of Fringe by providing a work of art that was unique.
*For more info and booking details go to the Melbourne Fringe Festival website