By Adam Rafferty.
British Australian playwright and host of The Guilty Feminist podcast, Deborah Frances-White takes Oscar Wilde’s cue in Never Have I Ever, a play filled with outrageous comedy and sparkling wit, that offers more political views than you can shake a shish kabob at. First commissioned for the UK’s Chichester Festival Theatre, the story is centred on two couples and set in the Turkish restaurant they started together. Jacq (Katie Robertson) and Kas (Sunny S Walia) as the proprietors and Adaego (Chika Ikogwe) and Tobin (Simon Gleeson) as silent financial partners.
They’re gathering in the empty restaurant this evening for Jacq and Kas to break the news that after almost 2 years, the business has gone bust like so many other hospitality offerings post-COVID, and Tobin’s investment has gone with it. The plan is to have one last great night there, to eat and drink the best wine, before the creditors take what’s left. Kas feels that he and Jacq should work to pay back their friends’ initial investment, but Jacq is convinced they understood they were risking their money from the outset.
Turns out Tobin is a forgiving investor, and things remain very convivial at first, but they devolve pretty quickly, as many parties do when an excess of alcohol and cocaine leads to drinking games including the dangerous variety of the play’s title. Suddenly, some previously unexposed truths come to the surface, and before any of them realise they’ve gone too far, a surplus of honesty finds them all on the defensive.
Politics of race, gender, identity, socio-economic, and plain old left versus right, all get an argumentative showing, as the barbs (and drinks) start flying between the quartet. Frances-White has got plenty to say, and if there’s anything to criticise about the script it’s that she doesn’t seem to want to let an opinion slip by without including it amongst the witty repartee. A bit of judicious editing would be unlikely to weaken the impact of this story but would help to shave down the 2 hours and 20 minutes playing time (with interval). Certainly, there are some very British references to people not in the Australian collective consciousness that could have been removed or at least revised.
Director Tasnim Hossain keeps the comedy moving swiftly and energetically however, while using every nook and cranny offered by Zoe Rouse’s elaborately beautiful basement restaurant set design. Of the many productions I’ve seen the MTC stage in the Fairfax Studio, this one feels by far the most grand, equipped with multiple playing levels – from the street-level entrance to the mezzanine concierge desk and waiting area, to the restaurant floor with its integrated kitchen and dining spaces, Turkish coffee heating sand pit and fully stocked wine cellar. You feel immersed in a very realistic restaurant setting; if only when Jacq is cooking at the beginning of the show, the smells of the dish were apparent (a frustration still not put to rest since Scarlett O’Hara and the Crimson Parrot, another scentless restaurant-set play from the MTC’s 2008 season.)
All four leads comport their performances superlatively, with each getting a moment to shine in Frances-White’s script. Ikogwe’s brings fabulous power to Adaego, the London journalist with connections to all the best podcasts and TED Talks. Robertson makes Jacq, the chef who grew up in white working-class poverty, a proud bi-sexual woman who seems to be more attracted to Adaego than she is to her somewhat sappy British Asian boyfriend Kas. He at least has his moment of righteousness in the second act as he relates his experience of racial prejudice and how he deals with it being completely different to Adaego’s reality.
The most difficult role to balance in these circumstances is that of the self-proclaimed “most left” leaning of the group, the hedge fund manager Tobin that Gleeson embodies with the thickest of Home Counties accents and fills with classically performative genuflection to his friends and wife. It’s an appropriate parody for where Frances-White sends his character as the ‘injured party’ and ultimate villain of the piece.
While it takes some time to get there, the conclusion of this piece feels equal parts satisfying and condescending, in the ‘girl power’ feminist vein, which I’m sure wasn’t entirely Frances-White’s goal. Nevertheless, the journey to this denouement is filled with sharply funny twists and turns that are thoroughly enjoyable.
Image: Sarah Walker
