By Adam Rafferty
While many may see theatre, especially the work of state theatre companies, as the place where ‘important’ stories should be told and ‘worthy’ subjects explored to inform our world view and reflect the current state of affairs, sometimes it’s not only fine, but perfectly refreshing to offer theatre that is purely about entertainment and a fun night out, which is certainly what Losing Face delivers.
As she has proved many times before, Marieke Hardy is a writer with a rapier wit and a cunning knack for skewering contemporary mores, and as usual she has filled Losing Face with an abundance of hilarious observations and crazy reflections of how we live our lives today. In this story she’s focusing on society’s obsession with youth and the desire to prevent the natural ageing process.
Travel writer Jo (Michala Banas) has invited her two oldest friends Lauren (Christie Whelan Browne) and Simone (Madeleine Sami) to celebrate her 50th birthday and join her on a gig reviewing a fancy new wellness resort, The Royal You, where they’ll all get to enjoy free treatments over a fun girl’s weekend away. The trio haven’t seen much of each other over recent years however, as their lives have moved in different directions. Unlike the other two, Jo has clung onto her party girl youth, remaining single and freewheeling from one short-term job to another all over the world. Whereas Lauren is now married and living in Castlemaine with her husband and young twins, where she has succumbed to the rigours of motherhood, wearing shapeless dresses and feeling constantly exhausted. Simone is also about to settle down and marry her girlfriend, creating tension between her and Lauren, who hasn’t seen an invitation to the wedding as yet. But this weekend provides the perfect opportunity for the old friends to forget their troubles, reconnect and relive the wild times of their youth – times that Lauren, who was potentially the most ‘loose’ one of the three, vehemently denies ever happening.
Upon arriving at the resort and being greeted by the Nurse (Genevieve Morris), they soon discover that massages, facials and infrared saunas are not on The Royal You’s menu of treatments. Rather, this is a high-end ‘medi-spa’ where guests come to nip and tuck their way through cosmetic procedures designed by the crazy Tomas (Wil King), a gyrating septuagenarian who has halted, or even reversed his age through endless surgeries and a conviction to living youthful forever.
While at first the girls resist the idea of body modifying treatments, Tomas’ hard sell and the results demonstrated by a Competitive Guest (also played by Morris) ultimately convince each of them to get just ‘a few little’ things done, causing some extreme and unexpected side effects.
The physical comedy involved in demonstrating the ludicrous body modifications the ladies each receive is truly hilarious and Whelan Browne in particular is a genius at this kind of slapstick comedy, physically transforming into a hideous version of her naturally beautiful self.
Banas and Sami are both also skilled comedians and deliver wonderfully funny performances, but it’s the wild caricatures of Morris and King that bring the biggest laughs. Morris is perfectly judgmental as the Nurse and brilliantly Byron-esque as the wackily sun-screened and floppy-hatted Competitive Guest. King’s dazzling self-choreographed routine thrusting onto the stage is worthy of its own round of applause and their screwy (South African?) accent is comedy gold. They make the perfect unhinged villain of the piece.
Latecia Cáceres’ direction captures all of Hardy’s comedy beautifully and sets up the relationships between the three women well, even though the script doesn’t offer much opportunity to understand how these three quite different women became friends in the first place. Jo Briscoe’s wellness spa set is cunning in its construction, allowing some fun sleight of hand to be achieved and for the story to flow seamlessly, while her costumes perfectly characterise the cast. It’s difficult to know who to credit for the various prosthetics that transform the cast, but they add enormously to the laughs and are a sight to behold!
While this is a very fun production of an ultimately quite silly story, it does stretch the limits of credibility to a point that might have some rolling their eyes. But if poking fun at the beauty industry and the inevitability of our own mortality is what you’re after, this play delivers in the extreme!
Image: Pia Johnson
