A dick-swinging, beret-wearing American playwright and an Irish journalist with a plasticky brown perm walk into an interview. In feminist comedian Adrienne Truscott’s hands, what comes next is a meta-theatrical examination of gender, theatre, and that never-ending conversation with no answers about “separating the art from the artist”.
This interview marks the beginning of Masterclass, the Edinburgh Fringe hit from Dublin-based company Brokentalkers, which has landed at the Sydney Opera House care of Sydney Festival. Truscott plays the playwright (of the same name) alongside Feidlim Cannon (also bearing his own name) and they do it with an effervescent playfulness that lights up the stage. Incisive jokes written by the pair and third co-creator Gary Keeegan about the male artist type range from broad physical humour (filling every face hole with a cigarette) to quips about privilege, making up a fast-paced ride that quickly turns sinister. Prop humour is a particular highlight in Masterclass, with a well-worn copy of the playwright’s latest (titled Fat Cunt), a gun, and some wigs bringing snort-laughter of various kinds.
Unfortunately, Masterclass loses some of its impact in its anemic set design and accompanying lighting transitions, and in its over-earnest and underplayed middle parts. A huge white curtain backdrop drowns the actors in their small rectangle of the stage, absorbing some of their larger-than-life comedy and muting their more serious scenes together. Lighting transitions are a little too subtle, making us work harder to figure out where we are in the meta-theatrical structure of the piece, rather than creating an effective visual language.
Despite this, the piece has some hilarious moments worth sticking around for. It’s a tight sixty-minute conversation starter for those of us who’ve read extensively on “the artist problem”, as well as those of us who might never want to “make way” for the “less privileged” artists coming after us.
Masterclass plays at the Sydney Opera House from Jan 12-16 for Sydney Festival. Tickets are $49-$69+bf and you can snap them up over here.
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