The Dance of Jeremiah
Writer: Matthew Ryan
Director: Sean Mee
Starring: Hayden Spencer, Iain Gardiner, Daniel Murphy, Georgina Symes and Neridah Waters
venue: Roundhouse Theatre
What a way to go. The La Boite theatre company is wrapping up 2005 with an inventive, insightful, surreal comedy that satisfies on almost every level.
While the Roundhouse will be the venue for two more plays this year – revivals of Mixed Company’s I Love You You’re Perfect Now Change and Lewis Jones’s production of He Died with a Felafel in his Hand – The Dance of Jeremiah marks the end of the subscription season.
La Boite had box-office success this year with a couple of comedies and kicked some impressive artistic goals with Michael Futcher and Helen Howard’s moving drama The Drowning Bride.
But just two years into its new home at QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus, there’s still a sense that this is a company in transition.
Artistic director Sean Mee’s decision of a few years ago to present only Queensland plays was extremely bold. Nobody but the greatest optimist could have expected them all to succeed, let alone enter the canon of great works. (Not that that should necessarily have been the aim, as good theatre is a creature of its time and place.)
What frustrated me, and others, was that some of the plays were clearly still works in progress when they hit the mainhouse stage.
That is why it’s a particular pleasure to write that, a couple of opening-night technical hitches notwithstanding, The Dance of Jeremiah is as ready as it could be.
Matthew Ryan’s play has been around for seven years. It has been in development, first by the Queensland Theatre Company and then by La Boite, since winning the George Landen Dann Award for Queensland playwrights in 1999.
As a consequence, it’s far more polished than many of the novel adaptations that have proven financially successful for La Boite in recent times. Problem is, it doesn’t have the immediate mainstream appeal – or leg-up – of a play based on a bestseller.
To book tickets to Jeremiah, whose author is a relative unknown and whose title is obscure and a little daunting, requires a leap of faith that I strongly suggest you take.
You will be rewarded with a witty script that mercilessly satirises the advertising industry and the phenomenon of self-help tapes (sorry, “personal growth CDs”) while still offering sensible insights into the human psyche.
Jeremiah (Hayden Spencer, revealing another facet of his formidable talent) is an ad executive whose world has begun to fall apart. His mentor is dead and his marriage is failing.
When the pop psychologist on the CD (an entirely off-the-wall Daniel Murphy) starts addressing him by name, his desk chases him around the office, a mystery woman (the alluring Georgina Symes) reignites his passion and a “mini-me” begins to take over his life, he knows he’s in trouble.
Colleague Donald (Iain Gardiner at his sleazy best) sniffs an opportunity to beat Jerry to a promotion, and tries to exploit co-worker Kathy (surprise package Neridah Waters) to achieve that end.
It plays out beautifully – and, yes, somewhat sentimentally – with the help of a cunningly designed set (by Jonathon Oxlade), haunting soundscape (by Tyrone Noonan) and lighting (by Jo Currey), a director (Sean Mee) with a flair for what’s funny and a particularly prickly puppet (built by Chris Booth).
Jeremiah is the perfect tonic for the stressed-out white-collar worker trying to keep it all together until Christmas time.
It’s a play in which nothing is what it seems, yet most things turn out to be exactly what they are. If that sounds obtuse, you’re just going to have to see it to know what I mean.
Just one tip: try to sit in the bank of seats facing the stage, which is in thrust mode. If you sit on the sides, you’re liable to miss some of the funny business and Spencer’s hilarious expressions.
Director: Sean Mee
Starring: Hayden Spencer, Iain Gardiner, Daniel Murphy, Georgina Symes and Neridah Waters
venue: Roundhouse Theatre
What a way to go. The La Boite theatre company is wrapping up 2005 with an inventive, insightful, surreal comedy that satisfies on almost every level.
While the Roundhouse will be the venue for two more plays this year – revivals of Mixed Company’s I Love You You’re Perfect Now Change and Lewis Jones’s production of He Died with a Felafel in his Hand – The Dance of Jeremiah marks the end of the subscription season.
La Boite had box-office success this year with a couple of comedies and kicked some impressive artistic goals with Michael Futcher and Helen Howard’s moving drama The Drowning Bride.
But just two years into its new home at QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus, there’s still a sense that this is a company in transition.
Artistic director Sean Mee’s decision of a few years ago to present only Queensland plays was extremely bold. Nobody but the greatest optimist could have expected them all to succeed, let alone enter the canon of great works. (Not that that should necessarily have been the aim, as good theatre is a creature of its time and place.)
What frustrated me, and others, was that some of the plays were clearly still works in progress when they hit the mainhouse stage.
That is why it’s a particular pleasure to write that, a couple of opening-night technical hitches notwithstanding, The Dance of Jeremiah is as ready as it could be.
Matthew Ryan’s play has been around for seven years. It has been in development, first by the Queensland Theatre Company and then by La Boite, since winning the George Landen Dann Award for Queensland playwrights in 1999.
As a consequence, it’s far more polished than many of the novel adaptations that have proven financially successful for La Boite in recent times. Problem is, it doesn’t have the immediate mainstream appeal – or leg-up – of a play based on a bestseller.
To book tickets to Jeremiah, whose author is a relative unknown and whose title is obscure and a little daunting, requires a leap of faith that I strongly suggest you take.
You will be rewarded with a witty script that mercilessly satirises the advertising industry and the phenomenon of self-help tapes (sorry, “personal growth CDs”) while still offering sensible insights into the human psyche.
Jeremiah (Hayden Spencer, revealing another facet of his formidable talent) is an ad executive whose world has begun to fall apart. His mentor is dead and his marriage is failing.
When the pop psychologist on the CD (an entirely off-the-wall Daniel Murphy) starts addressing him by name, his desk chases him around the office, a mystery woman (the alluring Georgina Symes) reignites his passion and a “mini-me” begins to take over his life, he knows he’s in trouble.
Colleague Donald (Iain Gardiner at his sleazy best) sniffs an opportunity to beat Jerry to a promotion, and tries to exploit co-worker Kathy (surprise package Neridah Waters) to achieve that end.
It plays out beautifully – and, yes, somewhat sentimentally – with the help of a cunningly designed set (by Jonathon Oxlade), haunting soundscape (by Tyrone Noonan) and lighting (by Jo Currey), a director (Sean Mee) with a flair for what’s funny and a particularly prickly puppet (built by Chris Booth).
Jeremiah is the perfect tonic for the stressed-out white-collar worker trying to keep it all together until Christmas time.
It’s a play in which nothing is what it seems, yet most things turn out to be exactly what they are. If that sounds obtuse, you’re just going to have to see it to know what I mean.
Just one tip: try to sit in the bank of seats facing the stage, which is in thrust mode. If you sit on the sides, you’re liable to miss some of the funny business and Spencer’s hilarious expressions.
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