Stuff Happens - Company B - York Theatre, Seymour Centre - 24/07/05

Ethan Switch - Tuesday, 26 July 2005 - Print Version

An old man with big glasses breaks the queue in an effort to talk to two young lasses. Never mind those waiting behind. The geezer needs a squeezer and the blonde and brunette are ripe for the picking. Pulling in a crowd extremely close to selling out the theatre, Stuff Happens stands in the skeletal remains of one of the two towers from the World Trade Centre. Flanking the stage, broken I-beams and girders dead on arrival. Ground Zero.

Seats of the Seymour Centre's York Theatre are no friends to those looking to bunker down, intent on catching the view from inside their eyelids. Blocky and with the kind of leg room sending knees to the space between people's shoulder blades, comfort is at a premium. Slamming the head too fast at the back wall runs up against the concrete that keeps the seats away from the walk.

From the freshly smoldering ruins, Stuff Happens delivers a prosaic view of the talks, discussions and backroom deals leading up to the US invasion on Iraq under the transparent and tenuous reason of terrorism.

Rhys Muldoon and Greg Stone take on Prime Minister Blair and President Bush with a mesmerising essence of each respective world leader. Not entirely striking resemblances, their voices and mannerisms more than making up any cosmetic short comings.

Colin Powell, in the hands of Wayne Blair, storms through the entire night as perhaps the only sympathetic and level-headed character next to those of the UN Security Council and the French. Condoleezza Rice, as smartly dressed by Leah Purcell, breaking balls and holding steady as the President's most trusted advisor. Osama bin Laden appears only as a passing reference. Australia's Prime Minister John Howard suffering a similar fate, despite being a part of the Coalition of the Willing.

The ensemble cast perform brilliantly as they switch and change scenes and even characters without a hint of effort or pause. Spotlights with a stark set of metal chairs and one big table work well to spin around the madness therein. The influence of the hidden trumpet up in the wings giving the production a jazzy, beatnik flavour.

Dangerously close to one another, a young couple on the left choose to flee the scene come the break in intermission. A spark of false hope and relief dying with the realisation of seeing no bows into the interval. A young girl, well below the age of being able to enforce her right to a vote. Everyone else is either well into their years or drifting in the limbo between.

Two hours down and the talks look right to continue on their full and merry coursing force. Every line and stance is familiar. Playwright David Hare making mince meat fodder of transcripts and reports coming out in the naked light. Never ending is this feeling; like the appeasement of the masses through the massive bombings on sovereign nations. Sounds of which erupt midway toward the gallant gallop home. Picking up an urgency in their voice, the atmosphere electrifies as the watery minutes of an unseen watch tick by.

After all the chatter and shouting, the end note of a lone Iraqi woman imparting her heartache quivers loudly against the harsh reality. Recounting the loss and destruction of her homeland by the "liberation" by the US, her softly spoken demeanour triumphantly brings it all home.

Stuff Happens is an unrelenting steaming display of the political will and might of the United States and their strong arm tactics in international diplomacy as they bend the United Nations over on the table for a sodomising. Harrowing in its honesty, out right laughs are far from concern. Specks of wry smiles popping up chaotically through standing merit of actual proceedings.

Throwing in at well over three hours, Stuff Happens is a relentless tax on the mind; concentration is critical for those intent on picking up every word and utterance. Blacking out here and there making the night pass that much quicker.

Many nod their heads along the night. Save for two or three, they are all wide awake.

As so eloquently surmised by Lizette Montpelier:
"Title: Stuff Happens
Tagline: But not in this play."

Ethan Switch