The Event by John Clancy
Nick Pelomis
Lithuanian Club
October 2 – October 9
Tickets: $15 – $25

A single actor takes the stage, commenting on his own appearance and announcing immediately to the audience that the entire show was simply him reciting a memorised hour long speech about nothing much at all. The Event is a very bold and somehow forcibly engaging monologue that challenges the fabricated role of the audience as listeners as much as the actor himself. The entire piece is vocalised in third person, a device that creates a somewhat humorous ambiguity and a very unique relationship between a small audience and a single performer.

Is the actor a character? Well, no he is just telling us what he is doing but since he is speaking in the third it sounds as if he is not talking about himself, instead embodying a fictional actor describing what he is doing physically, what he is thinking, who he thinks is in the audience and the possible reactions the audience might be having to his performance. So in a way he is a story teller but he doesn’t tell us a story. Who is he? What is he? Why have we come to see a stranger that we don’t know?  Why is he on stage speaking words that are the author’s, not his, to a bunch of strangers? Well he is an actor and that’s his job.

It is this idea of a ‘job’ or a ‘role’, that we each play in any given situation, that The Event explores through commenting on not only the professional actor and technician but the multiple roles played by varying members of the audience, from reviewers to other performing artists to the actor’s own friends and family. The pressurised and intense situation the audience is put in, observing a single man recite an extensive speech with minimal props and lighting, creates an acute awareness of each and every syllable, gesture and tone emanating from the stage as well as making the audience themselves particularly self-conscious of their own noises and movements.

Nick Pelomis’ monologue is long but never dull.  He is an engaging performer making strong eye contact with every member of the crowd. The venue, quite small, allowed for a sense of intimacy and closeness with the person on stage. John Clancy’s script shifts easily from a tongue in cheek expose of the conventions and expectations of actor to audience and audience to actor to a thoughtful musing of the inevitability of old age dementia and death. Cleverly imbedded in the play are a few one off theatrical jokes. The only noticeable section of poorer acting was during an announced 25 seconds of unscripted time given to Nick to speak his own mind, not the author’s, but even within this small criticism one can’t help but wonder if the poorer acting in this section was somehow deliberate and intended to further confuse and engage the audience.

I cannot think of a word that can encapsulate The Event. I’ll have to use several: Unconventional, funny, thoughtful, bold, surprising and ultimately delightfully thought provoking.

Click here for Laneway‘s full coverage of the 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival.