Performance: Waiting for Lotto

Silo Theatre

Review: Susan Budd


Waiting for Lotto stands in the same relation to dedicated buyers of Lotto tickets as Ash does to smokers.

It is a dire warning to desist immediately or enter the same half-world inhabited by Gerald Toomer - where the only excitement lies in the purchase of Lotto tickets and the only glamour in a few minutes of Saturday night television when the numbers roll.

If it were not so tacky, it would be tragic.

Gerald Toomer is a nerd with an obsessive-compulsive disorder that leads him not only to buy tickets according to a certain tortuous logic, but to keep them filed for posterity.

His initial hope that Lotto will make him sexy is obviously doomed, even in the unlikely event that he hits the jackpot.

His encounter with housie at age 8 is the start of a long, lonely road of addiction to a mindless game, even though he knows his chances of winning are one in two million or so.

To make matters more depressing, Gerald lives with his mother, wears the dreariest clothes ever seen at St Vincent de Paul and never, but never, stops talking or moving.

His encounter with Tracey, who attempts to ravish him on the family sofa at 8 one Saturday night, is utterly unbelievable. No woman could be so desperate.

Peter Nelson, the writer and solo performer, works very hard to provide Gerald with heaps of comic business. The problem is that he works too hard. The frenetic pace is tiring and ultimately alienating. With no change of pace or the opportunity to reflect for a moment, Gerald becomes a manic bore.

The relentless pursuit of his pathetic obsession renders pity superfluous, and his consummate self-satisfaction prevents sympathy for his plight.

But all is not lost. I have vowed never to buy a Lotto ticket again.