Review – Love & Other Acts of Theft
Fans of off-beat theatre, Toto, hot-pink shorts, and adorable wizards eat your heart out; Love & Other Acts of Theft is a Fringe theatre win.
Written and directed by Nate Troisi, Love & Other Acts of Theft is one hour of four short plays linked solely by well-placed Gilmore Girls references. Together they provide F I N T’s talented ensemble the opportunity to show the Adelaide Fringe audiences what they’ve got – and that’s skills, Adelaide. Acting skills!
The show opens with “The Ballad of Jen the Stage Manager”. Poor Jen puts up with the clichéd awful theatre types to help Max, who has lost his personality after the mysterious (yet hilarious) disappearance of his father. The story is messy, and the psychotic actor/absurd director jokes are overused, but this is the only slow part of the show. The pace and fun picks up with “Play Set in Some Guy’s Brain (I’m Not Good With Titles)” which is exactly what it suggests. Troisi lures us into the inner-workings of some guy’s memory – yet the sci-fi themed concept falls flat with very little time to explore the suspenseful happenings and an abrupt, corny ending. “Spitefucking and You: a Guide to Mental Betterment” is by far the simplest and most established piece. Emily Rose Marfleet delivers a spell-binding monologue about the aftermath of a relationship breakdown, sharing with us the joys of one-night-stand morning-after conversations. Last but not least, “The Spelling Misteak” introduces a young, ardent, asthmatic wizard and his best friend who stumble across a powerful love spell and venture to their school’s swimming carnival, only to realise love was in front of them all along. Soppy? Yes. Cute and funny? Very much so.
The farcical story lines of “Jen the Stage Manager” and “Set in Some Guy’s Brain” are not unpolished, perhaps ill-suited for the short-play form, needing more time for story set up and stronger character arcs. At a guess these are developing scripts yet to evolve into bigger pieces. The show’s love/theft themes as mentioned in the title are not that prevalent but not to matter – stop thinking – this is entertainingly absurd theatre: sit back and have fun with it.
Mattea Davies’ set is littered resourcefully with cardboard boxes used by the actors to introduce each play, conceal their costume frills and hide a few well-utilised yet dodgy props. This simple design is well suited to Tandanya’s make-shift, cosy venue. Troisi accompanies the snappy set changes on ukulele, adding to the light-hearted charm of the show. And the marvellous use of pop cover songs throughout included the only piece of theatre I have seen where a sing-a-long ending has worked. Ever.
Love & Other Acts of Theft is highly enjoyable silly Fringe theatre. Theatre geeks and fun people, get on it! This is a do not miss.
