Imagine you have stumbled into the waning hours of a house party. The only people left are the people who have nowhere else to go. They’re deeply sozzled and sharing around drugs and they think that makes them terribly interesting. There are looks exchanged that linger just a little too long here, a personal anecdote that gets cut off before someone even gets into it there. This is what it feels like to be in the audience at Set Piece.
Incorporating slick staging, clever movement and live cinematography, this theatre-film experiment claims to “explode the conventions of the couple drama and explore the ordinary and extraordinary facets of queer relationships”. The show enacts Groundhog Day-esque repetition tactics, which in conjunction with the underdeveloped characters, leaves the 70-minute experience feeling more like an endurance sport than entertainment. It provokes the question – yes, the traditional stage play can be deconstructed, but how far should an absence of plot be taken and to what end?
Co-created by independent theatremakers Nat Randall and Anna Breckon, the duo behind the rave-reviewed marathon performance The Second Woman, Set Piece is, on a technical level, a cutting-edge triumph. The set design by Genevieve Murray puts an entire apartment stripped bare of its walls at the centre of a traverse stage, with four camera operators suited with body cams following the movements of the four actors. Yet more overhead cameras provide bird's-eye views of the action. With large overhead screens broadcasting a live cut of what unfolds on the stage, the marrying of the cinematic and theatrical forms is visually interesting and allows for deeper intimacy, magnifying the tactile nature of live performance.
But where there is style in abundance, there's a notable dearth of substance. There seems to be a desperate longing for intimacy that isn’t found. These people can never quite find validation in one another or in themselves, even when conversations are pushed further on a second go around. The lack of warmth is no doubt part of the show’s statement on the ordinary, but it grows tedious.
The audience is a fly on the wall. There are some subtly hilarious lines that hint to deeper observations of dinner party conversation, and ruminations on queer reality. But without more information to contextualise the characters and their motivations, it is difficult to become invested in the proceedings. The two older women are clearly a couple. Are the two younger women also in a relationship? Not sure. Is it a transgression when one of the older women and the young butch take their flirting to the next level in the other room? Can’t tell.
In a moment of unexpected comedic brilliance and cinematic interest, we watch an overhead shot of a drunk woman lying underneath a glass coffee table that’s covered in party favours of the innocent and un-innocent varieties. She slowly reaches over and drags a crinkle-cut potato chip towards her face and devours it. It’s the most memorable moment of the show. Perhaps second to a casual ankle sucking.
It should not go unacknowledged that these are difficult times to debut theatre, with Covid surging out of control across Australia and a dark cloud hanging over the 2022 Sydney Festival where this show makes its debut. The show’s creators are clearly talented, intellectual and have many more promising contributions to make to the arts, but Set Piece feels like a work that's more rewarding for its creators than the audience viewing it.
Backed by Breckon’s PhD in queer and feminist film theory and Randall’s extensive experience in contemporary theatre and durational models of performance, on paper, Set Piece is an exciting and daring new work of theatre. But in practice, it felt uncomfortable and unfinished – the storytelling equivalent of the deconstructed iced coffee. I am a queer feminist-identifying woman who enjoys theatre and film (and iced coffees), but in this case, I wish the baristas stopped overthinking it, even if some of my favourite ingredients made it into the fancy cup.