Reviewed by SHANNON HUSE
A play called Bash being marketed with the line that "atrocity is the new black" was never going to make for a fun evening of light entertainment.
But it says something about the times we live in when people afterwards are saying the crimes in the play "weren't that atrocious". I guess when you've been raised on a television diet of murder, mayhem, serial killers, war criminals and live cosmetic surgery it's pretty hard to get too worked up about human suffering laid bare.
Playwright Neil LaBute belongs to the same boys club as Brett Easton-Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk - guys who write about the venality, self interest, hypocritical and basically psychopathic elements of some aspects of America culture.
In Bash he presents three stories told by four actors in monologue. A young woman is interviewed at a police station, a respectable business man is holed up in a motel and a couple are recounting their ultimate night out.
Directed by Shane Bosher, the SiLo Theatre production of Bash is a solid, simply staged show that displays the acting chops of its four talented performers.
In Medea Redux, Mia Blake is all liquid brown eyes and unconfident twitches, making her confession of vengeance all the more startling.
Oliver Driver is next up in a monologue entitled Iphigenia in Orem, and it is great to see him cast against type as a worn-out Mormon salesman and corporate drone with a terrible secret. His performance is a standout - it made me think of Russell Crowe in The Insider. Driver shows he too has the range to play both angry young men and puffy losers.
Rounding out the show are David Van Horn and Toni Potter who play John and Sue, two preppy all-American kids. They deliver snappy performances that perfectly capture the casual violent, racist and homophobic attitudes of some "nice" people.
To say this is theatre at its most pared-down is an understatement. The set is a black back wall with a pile of broken glass running across the back and the simplest of props.
No costume designer is credited in the programme, although Auckland Theatre Company stalwart Elizabeth Whiting is thanked in the credits. Though the costumes are bland American street clothes, they are exactly what the characters would wear and help the actors to inhabit their roles.
The lighting design by Jane Hakaraia is simple and effective, except for a recurring motif that sees the lights raised to an artificial harshness at the point where each character makes his or her chilling confessions.
It seems a literal way to highlight that people are baring their souls and jars against the rest of the understated, naturalistic production.
One of the most effective aspects of the staging is the proximity of the audience to the stage. The stage is tiny and the audience is literally in the actors' faces, adding to the slightly queasy feeling that you are hearing things you really don't want to.
Bash is a sick treat for the CSI generation, people fascinated with the serial killers who live next door and with man's capacity for evil. It is still rattling around in my mind, but I feel strangely untouched by it.
No, that's not true - it has made me believe that love and hope could be the last shocking and subversive concepts we have.
* Bash, by Neil LaBute, at SiLo Theatre July 14-31
<i>Bash</i> at SiLo Theatre
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