Review: Eulogy at the Maidment Theatre

Scott Wills as preacher Joshua. Photo / Supplied

Fallen tele-evangelists: they're so outrageous, how do you out-top their over-the-top?

Eulogy doesn't quite know the answer; the flatness of its send-up is less cartoon than cardboard cut-out.

The set-up for the one-man show has potential: the audience is congregation to preacher Joshua's eulogy to his late father, the "prophet" Joseph Jones.

But far from being the father-worshipping unreliable narrator described by the show's well-produced website (sacredprophet.org), Joshua is a blank character who tells us his father's story, warts and all, with little emotion. His account is linear, with no subtext, no layers, no possible reading between the lines; he stays completely on the straight and narrow.

In place of sustained storytelling, there are clever visual gimmicks and a string of puns - writers Colin Mitchell (who directed) and Wade Jackson (who produced) have a background in improv comedy. Some of the jokes hit near their target mark: "Let us prey" flashes up on screen while Joshua implores us to keep "eyes and minds closed". More groan-inducing, spot the Christmas carol: Joshua says his mother "was away in our manager's office".

Designed by the Cut Collective's Kurt Ensor and illustrated by Misery, Eulogy's multimedia production values are high. A la Forrest Gump, actor Scott Wills has been spliced into screen footage of JFK, Martin Luther King jnr and others by Casey Smith and Will Pickering. The set design by Barnie Duncan is tastefully lurid. Communion wine in the foyer is a nice touch; the murky electronica (by Mint Chick Ruban Nielson) all too brief.

It's very pleasing to see Scott Wills (Stickmen, Apron Strings) back on stage after several years away but his delivery doesn't quite have the oomph of a real preacher's florid cadences. As any evangelist would tell you, a microphone would help. But when Wills finally gets a meaty speech about fathers and Gods who forsake their children at the end, he lets rip and Eulogy's missed opportunities shine.

It's only $28, but you'd find more theatricality and dramatic irony at a Mt Roskill Baptist church on any given Sunday.

What: Eulogy

Where: Maidment Theatre

When: To July 16.