The Young Tycoons - Spooky Duck Productions - Darlinghurst Theatre Company - 07/09/05

Ethan Switch - Friday, 9 September 2005 - Print Version

Everybody takes the chance to stomp on a lady's foot as they seat themselves. Disdain and hidden anger playing easily into the production notes for Spooky Duck's The Young Tycoons.

The Voglers and the Warburtons, essentially the Packers and the Murdoch family empires, centre and swirl around the bloody waters of their own capitalistic filth. Media empires under the divination of their loins, nepotism is their guiding voice without reason. Contracts rule with an almighty iron fist.

Lighting appears to be either problematic and troublesome in spots or merely the result of structuring the mood. Reporting hound Grolsch hammers most of his lines with an overcast beneath the shadows. Surely a sign of the dubious nature of the muck raking media that he so gruffly represents. Or perhaps a very reflection on the man's soul. Who's to say other than the technicians working their backstage employment figures.

Men and women perusing the wares of the adult bookstores in the Kings Cross area ride in with trench coats and power the press conferences. Calm as they are, the very bite of the swarm is lost. Given the underlying source of wealth for the Voglers and Warburtons, it's a clearer line toward the sleaze that is the fourth estate.

Cutthroat showboats, the characters are but shallow pools of ego in snappy suits and smart dresses. Brash and brimming with inexperience, the young tycoons are eating at the adults' table unbeknownst to everyone.

Grolsch is a ruthless reporter for a fictional rag known as The Sydney Tribune. The skeleton and guts of the prop does well to hide any real indication that the world of reality and theatre are truly ever apart longer than a back hand reference.

They smash wine glasses when they fall asleep, fingers unable to grasp the situation at hand. Or they smash wine glasses to break the monotony of listening to other voices. Either way, with enough alcohol in the blood of the audience, they'll smash wine glasses for the hell of making noise. Shattering as it does.

Underlining entries in a dictionary found at a second-hand book shop, the patriarchs reflect and ruminate upon the generational respects toward wealth. A line they repeat a few times to neatly echo the inevitable transgressions.

"The first generation acquires it. The second generation builds it. The third generation fucks it all up."

Clinical and near the point of scoring the well of the increasingly arid landscape, The Young Tycoons repackages the lives of Jamie Packer and Lachlan Murdoch as they rise to the top of their empires and crash in a most spectacularly public and humiliating fashion.

With a tinge of sarcasm and a scathing shot of venom, the script fails to add more than is necessary. Much of the comedy and humour straps itself close to the actual billion dollar misadventures of the reckless two.

Ethan Switch