Performance: Never Never

Silo Theatre

Review: Susan Budd


Hula hoops spin round the waists of the high energy cast of Never Never.

The perfect prop, they serve as steering wheels, cups, plates - umbrellas even.

Apples feature prominently, too. They bump around vases of plastic tulips, lie half-eaten on the floor of an over-decorated storage unit, and are munched with determination by the cast. They are the fruit of temptation, of carnality and desire, and serve as the motif of Jackie van Beek's charmingly off-the-wall play.

It is hard to say what the play is about and what it all means. The narrative constantly stutters to a halt and veers off to songs and disco dances that do not appear to have great relevance to the plot. But they are performed with such verve and style that the distractions are welcome.

Witty one-liners pop up in the strangest places, and nothing is quite what it first appears to be.

A car, an object of desire unseen except for the hula hoop steering wheel, is a central plot device. It belongs to Trudi, about whom we learn little, not even if she is dead or living in New York. Jo (Jackie van Beek) was her lover and wants her, the car and money she is owed with equal passion.

Liz (Miranda Manasiadis) is engaged to Trudi's brother, Barry (Paolo Rotondo). He is a Jehovah's Witness opposed to sex outside marriage and prepared to accept with equanimity the prospect of his fiancee's giving birth as a virgin. John (Rob Mokaraka) is a sleazy guitarist dedicated to sex without commitment. It is all a gloriously messy mix.

Tracey Monastra's set is stylishly kitsch. The storage unit is a shrine to a comic book Eve, whose portrait lies within a red heart that at the climax of the play glows with neon lights.

Director Emma Willis keeps a firm hand on events and characters that threaten to shoot out of control, shaping and restraining the anarchic elements to an almost coherent whole.