Blue Eyes and Heels - Darlinghurst Theatre - 17/10/06

Ethan Switch - Thursday, 19 October 2006 - Print Version

Pass the corner and down Greenknowe Avenue, it's there lights. Darlinghurst Theatre, like it never was any further away from Elizabeth Bay than Onslow. Pick up that reference and it's a world of old and heritage. For there is nothing like an aside to pull away the focus of the main and it's the guss of it that leaves the smarts.

Much as it is to walk in and spot a ring, they'll call it a squared circle to annoy those geometric fanatics. Screw them and pin their shoulders to the mat as the blind referee, as flamboyant as a flamingo sets off the count. One. Two. Three and you're done, son.

Game over and the night begins with heavy pixellations of video on the back. A white enough wall of big barn doors with old moves and fly dives screaming from the vintage footage only old by decades. Spandex, leotards and tights like the days of now, heroes and heels all the same playing the game.

Feel the lack of excitement in the air as old rubber band man Victor tells his wrestler come of age story to an uncaring and frankly, quite bored Duncan. Emma the PA is barely there, keeping an eye on things and looking to walk out the door.

Love wrestling? Then feast on the supposed machinations on why it's just good fodder for some and a dastard deviation for others. All a matter of taste and perception really.

John McNeill presents the defeat of Victor from start to naive finish with aplomb. Just for the sake of using such a word really. And really, watching the crush of the man's heart is to partake in wantonly watching the matador spear and spear the bull till the legs and horns can shake no more.

Patrick Brammal on the other hand, as the weasel known as Duncan, is the slime that is in most of television and producer persona. There appears to be little redeeming value in his soul, though his spark is quite impressive. No matter how far down below the suck pole he slides down, he knows what's what and what's what is his core, a cavernous lock of gross pandering to the popular.

Sandra Eldridge looks like death as she shuffles about watching all the action from and on the inside of the ring. Her heart's not in it as crude cynic falls behind the times as her attempts at levering "good taste," subjective in everybody's eyes, offers her a hint of refuge.

So why is it that what is popular cannot always also be in good taste? And that the reach of some standard of quality from the masses, swimming in the pool of excrement that is their opinion, is a far fetched prospect. Sure to burn anyone looking for stimulating discussion and intellectualism on a ground base?

Because it's not what the people want.

Apparently.

Ethan Switch

Speaking of:

• wrestling,
• john mcneill,
• patrick brammal,
• sandra eldridge,
• darlinghurst theatre company