With a jury of 14 on one side and a window sill sitting a gallery on the other, it’s an intimate audience. Borrowing the floorspace that is otherwise the Flashback Theater office, there is no room to get in the way of getting in the way.
Convictions have us at the centre of Getting and Spending, raising the question of where on the moral grey line is a comfortable spot to sit. If there is one. Because the rule of law is going to take its chance at taking its chunk of flesh. Kick, scream, doesn’t matter if the core is rotted by the veneer of looking the other way.
Reticent on the first step, Victoria Phillips (Bailey Patterson) launches upon the chance for self-preservation found inside the walls of the monastery. Not a shy one at all, Phillips shims her foot in the door, brandishing a fierceness of someone desperate to control the narrative and their story, or at least the one they’re willing to share. Her vulnerability is ever calculating, quickly blinded by hubris when the hearts of others are autonomous.
Richard O’Neill (Billy Christopher Maupin) vacillates between the here and the days of glory. Conflict putting sweat on his brow as he touches back into the world he so vehemently left behind. The “what if” of standing at a crossroads sends tremors of happiness in twain before a final look back. Happiness and passion are similar, but cannot substitute for the other in any meaningful way.
From the first aside, Brother Alfred (Brian Herrmann) is a light foot in with an affable charm, cutting the tension in each scene. Whether in robes or a suit found in the discards of the op shop, Brother Alfred always finds the light in the murk, beaming with the presence and revelling in the joy of the here and now. A mirthful contrast to the wringing, pained hands of Charles Humboldt (Seth Hart). Wretchedly in the wings, always waiting, never the one.
An empty chair sits in the chasm of the struggles. Yes, it is mostly blocking and would be a disruption to constantly move it out of each scene. But there it sits still, an unseen witness present at times where the characters are struggling to wade through the ethical and moral void.
As the distant church bells break us into the denouement, with a slightly over-sized suit, O’Neill’s days of the monastery wrestle against the brief exhilarating dip back into the legal morass. The clothes don’t fit with the inner turmoil sowing seeds of doubt. Lost in the fabric, our wardrobe choices often steers our outer-self before the inner can adjust. The hem is hawing.
The facade of altruism undercuts Getting and Spending and sharpens the afternoon air just through the doors onto the street outside. “Everything You Want” by Vertical Horizon tunes in just enough on the intermission and fading out the audience. You can mean nothing and you don’t know why. Nobody owes you their true self if they cannot or will not see it themselves.
Directed by Sommer Schoch, October 2025 inside the Flashback Theater offices. Two hours with an intermission and if you’re going to be late, don’t let your shoes give you away.
Reviewed on Saturday, 1 November 2025