(disclaimer, I'm thanked in the program on this one, I think largely for lending the director some of the scripts that I own as part of her ongoing studies, and this production forms the major project for her studies. Also she sang at my wedding. For those who want to read this as immoderate bias, feel free to do so, comments are monitored which means I'll probably read them and delete them unless they're particularly thought-provoking).
Gordon Graham's "The Boys" is a play that I'd read but never seen up until now - despite both play and film being recognised classics. Loosely using a historical murder for a deeper look into misogyny, violence, and the way that groups fail to deal with or build that into a central plank of a personality and lifestyle, it's confronting, raw stuff, cutting right to the bone in how it presents its case study of three brothers and how the women in their life are affected by the self-reinforcing loop of toxic misogyny. It's ostensibly based on the Anita Cobby case but reduces it down to the three brothers charged, omitting the actual ringleader and another man who were involved - and in any case, the circumstances of the case are so sadly familiar that it could have happened yesterday with no particularly significant updates.
Amy Kowalczuk's production strips the play raw down to an in-the-round space with minimal props and setpieces (milk crates, a couple of platforms to make a bed, a bucket for beers). The round is incredibly exposing to performers and will not abide a single moment of falseness, and mostly the performances and realisation serve that well - from the tense dramatic scenes to the between-scenes movement pieces by Michelle Norris that show the tensions against a backdrop of female singers singing songs largely identified with men (in particular, a piece focussed on Cole Hilder and Indy Scarletti as the pulls of his family are shown against her tight embrace).
Some of this play felt incredibly familiar to me - particularly how young people try to make the leap to adulthood too soon through couplehood and pregnancy, seeking out a partnership in the worst way and, inevitably, that's how they get it - and how people try to create an in-group and an out-group, and deflect any criticism of their in-group with "oh, but if you really understood him, that's not like him" etc - it's unnervingly familiar in any encounters I've had with abusers.
(note, this paragraph has been revised as I've been ruminating on what I said about the acting) This is an interesting wrestle with a challenging script - this is not a play about making audiences comfortable, and it does its job at that - it's not a perfect production (there's a couple of moments where the Brechtian desire to do abstract types plays a little too much against the more realist script - in particular Indy Scarletti's performance as Jackie falls a little too much into the stereotypical "nag" rather than the more complex character written, with aspirations and wrestling with how to transcend her and her partner's situation) but it's a compelling watch.
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