Review: Comfort, Spin, Travel is overshadowed by the play it could have been
Presented by Fruit Box Theatre, written by Lu Bradshaw, directed by Emma Burns
Review by Rebecca Cushway
Written by queer and trans playwright Lu Bradshaw, Comfort, Spin, Travel tackles the sensitive and complex relationship between trans expression and trans responsibility. The unnamed Performer/protagonist outlines, in crumbs and clues, how they came out to their sister and the rest of their family. The setting is an Officeworks late at night, in the aisle of spinning office chairs. The tension is slowly turned up, and Performer reveals their thinly-veiled anger at a world that is constantly against them. Hadrian Conyngham plays the Performer with a wave of anger that filled the small Meraki stage, and could only have come from lived experience.
Bradshaw may have been writing about important and vulnerable ideas, but this importance and vulnerability don’t always translate. The highlight of the show is the grounding performance of Rachel Seeto as Worker, as she introduces the production and maintains an air of kitsch professionalism hovering in the background of this fictional Officeworks. The character arc of Worker from a nervous, chastised uni student to an empowered late-night retail therapist is compelling. With less than ten lines under her belt, she adds a lightness to the stage that is an exceptional foil to the meandering monologue of the Performer.
The uniquely liminal setting for the play, an empty Officeworks late at night, is a clever set-up for the isolation and disjointed reality that trans people experience in a strictly structured cis world. Bradshaw uses this setting to create a beautiful sense of nostalgia by making clear that our Performer was returning to a place that was the physical embodiment of a childhood memory with their sister. However, the metaphor that is the office-chair testing (of comfort, spin, and travel) is not fleshed out enough, despite being the main structural device in the script. Without establishing a strong link between the setting and the story, it serves as a quirky placeholder for a more meaningful analysis of the performativity of trans expression.
Comfort, Spin, Travel features a continual breaking of the fourth wall with audience participation. This quickly turns the audience into a character, but it was unclear whether we were a trusted confidante, a diary of sorts, or an imaginary friend. The Worker and Performer both address the crowd throughout the performance, asking questions and handing props to members of the crowd. At one point, the audience is asked to each read off randomly assigned quotes from the show on scraps of paper. Soaring, emotive music (by Georgia Condon) plays as each audience member reads out these lines with mixed levels of enthusiasm. A smattering of regular people reading earnest and touching words out of context, and coming together to communicate a single message, is a creative and affecting moment. The momentum built by this participation then fizzles out during more of the same dialogue from our narrator. Shortly after this, a four-person flash mob appears in a lengthy choreographed number – a confusing end to the show.
The advantage that independent theatre has over its larger, mainstage siblings is the ability to focus on one brilliant and complex idea. This simplicity lends itself to storytelling that has no excuse but to really chew on an idea in a unique and intimate way. Comfort, Spin, Travel, unfortunately, does not take advantage of this narrowed focus.
In the context of Sydney WorldPride, and in the context that is the longstanding history of queer pain in art, the anger of this production falls short of being impactful and instead serves as an angst-ridden soliloquy. There is a necessary place for queer anger and even more of a necessary place for trans rage. However, in order to bear the burden of communicating a universally felt resentment, this play needed to delve deeper into the uniquely-felt pain of its specific protagonist. Comfort, Spin, Travel has some noble intentions, but it is ultimately overshadowed by the play that it could have been.
Comfort, Spin, Travel played at Meraki Arts Bar from 24 February - 11 March as part of Sydney WorldPride 2023. Find information here.
Production images by Matthew Miceli
Rebecca Cushway is a radio host blessed with the most luxurious radio voice in the Inner West and burdened with the ability to do everything everywhere all at once. She’s not nearly as smart as the undergrads she tutors at UTS think she is.
This review was generously donated by Bec.
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