The Ensemble Theatre has ended the year very neatly with two festive themed plays running in tandem, both by Sydney playwrights. They are Hilary Bell’s A Christmas Carol, already reviewed, and Sam O’Sullivan’s BOXING DAY BBQ.
Over the years, I have seen more than my fair share of plays, comedies, about dysfunctional families meeting over the Christmas/New Year period Family secrets are revealed old wounds reappear. Everything is kind of sorted out at the end.
Sullivan pretty much sticks to the formula. Thankfully there were some divergencies from the well won path. Chief amongst this was a hilarious dream/nightmare sequence featuring Peter where he was alone in the house tackling the fires and also then facing a dreaded swam of bees. Peter is allergic to them and is terrified that he might be stung by them and end up with an allergic reaction,
Ensemble Theatre Artistic Director Mark Kilmurry helms the action well. His creative team effectively create the world for the actors to work in; Ailsa Patteson very functional set of the backyard to the family home with a back door to the house proper which we don’t get to see. David Grigg’s soundscape includes some extracts of the sound of summer, the cricket commentary, and the sound of bees perhaps returning to Morris.
An Ensemble Theatre regular, Brian Meegan plays the lead, likeable middle class father Peter who has taken up BBQ duties from his father who passed away during the past year. Peter thinks that he is cool, but not really, He gets stressed easily. And he tells some terrible Dad jokes that really aren’t funny. Meegan has a lovely, relaxed stage presence and was well cast in the role.
Danielle Carter impressed playing the role of Connie, Peter’s sister and Morris’s ex wife. She sounded like a student who had just come out of a lecture theatre and needed to share all the new ideas explored. Peter figures that Connie has influenced Jennifer to gp a bit ‘off the rails’.
Harriet Gordon-Anderson played Peter’s grown up daughter, Jennifer who has completed a degree but decided that she will volunteer on a.pirate ship. Who uses the expression pirate ship these days?! I assume that what is meant by pirate ship is something like Greenpeace, a warrior ship trying to save the environment?!
Jamie Oxenbould’s Morris is a bit of a timid, mild mannered eccentric who keeps a beehive in the backyard. Morris tells everyone that the bees have absconded and is waiting for them to come back. At one time, he brews up some pheremones to try and attract the bees back. In a very funny scene, Morris comes on stage dressed up in a full bee protection outfit. The outfit is quite deliberately reminiscent of Covid protection outfits.
Aileen Haynh plays Val, Peter’s second wife and is easily the most obnoxious character. She is anti science, anti knowledge. She ruffles the feathers of everyone infusing he husband. Amongst her outlandish beliefs is that the earth is round, that climate change doesn’t exist, and that a person walking on the moon didn’t happen. The other characters think that they are very enlightened and prescient and c an’t believe that Val is for real.
Peter’s late father hangs like a shadow over the play with his wam, loving presence.
A few times during the play there’s a throwaway line. (either Morris or Peter uses it). It goes, Bruce Lee said, ”Be the water’. It was kind of funny, but I think that it was perhaps a little overdone.
This wasn’t a full on laugh out loud comedy, though it certainly did have its moments, and we left with smiles on our faces. BOXING DAY BBQ is playing the Ensemble Theatre until 15 January 2023.
Featured image : Brian Meegan as Peter in Sam O’Sullivan’s BOXING DAY BBQ. Production photography by Prudence Upton
