To shamelessly borrow from a popular nineties sitcom
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear,
When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year,
(handclaps)
So to it is with some of the characters in Maiden Voyage Theatre Company’s Belated. There are breakups, bust ups, bickering, and a tiny bit of murder (or maybe manslaughter) #spoilers. But there’s also friendship, and going the extra mile for your best friend. There’s a meme out there somewhere that says your best friend will help you move the body… and well so it is with Blythe and Max.
Belated is the debut work from writer Liz Newell, and the first work from Perth’s newest theatre company Maiden Voyage. It’s safe to say they’re off to a pretty good start. Whilst Belated might not be groundbreaking stuff, it’s incredibly charming, well written and acted and is importantly – entertaining.
It’s a great character driven work, with Max, Blythe, Norah and Dean really being the work’s strong point. These are characters that felt real, and for me these were characters I wanted to know more about. Newell drops little details of their histories and backstories but I would have loved more – for example I’d love to know how Blythe knows not just one, but at least two guys you can make a body disappear!
Their relationships felt believable too; from how Blythe and Max met, to the complicated relationship that is Blythe and Norah. Though for all the talk of Norah and Blythe not getting along, Norah did seem to go out of her way to try and accommodate Blythe, bringing home beer for example.
The believability of those relationships is of course thanks to the chemistry of the actors, all of whom seemed to bounce off each other. I’ve been a fan of Peter Lane Townsend and Maja Liwszyc since Under this Sun last year and it was great to see them sharing a stage again. Emily Kennedy was a delight as Blythe – really capturing the characters “prickliness”. Benj D’Addario even managed to make Dean actually seem likeable, and certainly brought an added comedic edge as the Dean-shaped hallucination – more plays need a dancing corpse hallucination right?
Belated in many respects is quite a naturalistic work; though I enjoyed that there was the right amount of over-the-topness to give it a little edge or kick; that lifts it from being just another play about friends, flat shares and relationships being strained. Emily McClean’s direction seems to err on the side of subtle, allowing the characters room to breathe and develop. The set design by Tessa Darcy not only looked good, but was also functional – I liked the duality of the set, and the ease at which the audience were transported to a different locale – and Darcy really nailed the slight dilapidated Aussie pub aesthetic.
The soundtrack from St. South brought some added character to the piece, and made those scene transitions fly by; and fitted in nicely with Joe Lui’s sound design; which was largely unobtrusive. Lui’s lighting work was also quite subtle but I think hammered home the different worlds in which Norah and Blythe operate in; the brightness of the house in which Norah and Max live, and the dimly lit world in which Blythe seems more at home in.
In creating Maiden Voyage Theatre Company, Liz Newell’s aim was to have more gender parity into theatre, to champion women in theatre; and in Norah and Blythe she has created two strong and compelling women. Belated finally is well written, and Newell clearly has an eye and ear for a great one liner. With a run time of an just over an hour, it’s up there as one of the longer plays I’ve seen on the Blue Room stage, but it never really felt like it was dragging – rather it was quite pacy and taut.
In short you should catch Belated at the Blue Room; it’s entertaining, charming and will draw you in. Newell and her team have launched Maiden Voyage strongly and it’ll be interesting to see where they go from here.
Belated is on at Perth’s Blue Room Theatre until 28th May. For more information and ticketing visit HERE
The reviewer attended the Opening Night performance on May 12th.
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