Absurdist comedy set in the Wild Wild West has some nice moments, good intentions but lacks attention to detail and clear direction.
The Good, The Bad, The (very) Silly follows the story of when “…an outlaw in the Wild West stumbles upon a peculiar saloon run by a wacky barman. As eccentric characters enter the saloon one-by-one, the outlaw and his new-found assistant must discover the truth behind the Saloon’s mysterious effects.”
Vering on the side of too silly, this show makes a good attempt at guiding the audience through the story but regularly gets lost in the chaotic nature of the characters and their side quests. If you’re looking for slapstick moments and larger than life characters then look no further and remember to stick ’em up.
First up to grace us with their presence is the owner of the saloon and barman, played by Luke Rose – who also directs this piece. His engagement with the audience was charming and pleasant as he pottered about the saloon, cleaned up, offered drinks and made a few quips. There was one moment where he climbed over an audience member and got very close and personal, potentially a little too close as the audience member looked uncomfortable. (For future shows it would be good to give the audience the option if they would like to be involved or not. Those who are a yes, sit at the front, those who are not so keen, sit at the back.) Luke does a good job at portraying the bumbling, child-like, sometimes overly comfortable barman and has a knack for physical comedy and delivers good comical timing. His attempts to make each guest that enters his saloon feel comfortable is endearing- even when he doesn’t always say or do the right thing.
Our next character to fall (quite literally) into the scene is our Cowboy, Daniel Pirie. As the audience we are met with nothing less but a cliche of a cowboy as he saunters through the saloon. Mysterious, devious and after one thing. Gold. Daniel delivers classic cowboy in his mannerisms and vocal qualities, we believe him to be a real stone cold ranger of the Wild West. As the story unravels we see a different side to this cowboy which I feel Daniel did a good job in portraying. He flipped our prejudices which is always a pleasure to see in storytelling. Who is this cowboy really? Why is he here? And what does he need to do to move on?
Screams are heard from the other side of the stage as our next performer leaps into the action. Vilma Kitula offers a nice vibrancy to her multitude of characters but struggles to keep ahold of the accents thus making it sometimes confusing for the audience to know which role she was playing. Vilma’s best moment was when she came out as the inventor, she exuded a fun energy and tapped into a funny clownish nature. The intention for each of her characters is there, but may need more time and attention to detail to make each persona shine on their own.
The standout performance came from Cameron Harris. He brought great pace, a range of characters with individual personas and remained authentic and bold throughout. A particularly lovely moment is when he plays the alcoholic priest comforting our protagonist- words are shared and a revelation is born. Cameron held his own and allowed the audience to sit back and enjoy his performance.
Although there were some lovely moments, as a whole I feel the play struggled to keep us engaged throughout. The dropped physicalities and accents meant we were taken away from the world and ended up watching actors in costumes on stage. At times the absurdist side of the performance tipped too far over the edge and became chaotic and unfollowable. It will be up to direction to reevaluate the balance between impactful absurdist theatre versus adding in random moments of being silly for silliness sake. The actors did a good job with the script, which I also think is still in its developmental stages but with clear direction, clarity of story and character there is no reason why this play will not be a great success. Yeehaw!