“started with good intentions, being based around an intriguing topic of debate, but sadly, fell short “
Having had an exciting year at the Edinburgh Fringe and at the Strawberry One-Act Festival in New York, MonkeyMac are ending their year on the road by bringing their short play, Talkabout, home to London. This new absurdist production, written and directed by George Coates, follows two couples sitting around a table seemingly having a normal, if not a little awkward, dinner-party conversation. However, it doesn’t take long to realise that everything is not quite as it seems. The same discussions are being exchanged, over and over again, as it is revealed that no one around the table is able to leave the room. If they do, they will have to suffer the consequences.
Whilst reading about MonkeyMac, they reveal that Talkabout was based around exploring the existential question: “is it better to be benevolently oppressed or have the freedom to live in mortal danger?” However, the play did not examine this as comprehensively as it could have done – it certainly had the potential. The stakes within the play did not seem high enough as to why they were stuck in the room. Details became wishy-washy and not fully conceived. Being an abstract piece, I was not expecting, nor wanting, complete clarity and understanding of the situation, but there was not enough of even a sense as to what the characters motivations were or feelings towards what was on the other side of the four walls in which they were trapped. Perhaps ambiguity was an artistic choice that just went over my head? Perhaps having everyone except Tony (played by MonkeyMac’s Artistic Director, Sam Gibbons) vacant and unbothered by the repetitive conversations, was a way of exploring society slowing brain washing us? Or, perhaps I was just reading too much into the short, absurdist play that should have been taken at face value, for what it was?
Either way, the play itself seemed to be the weakest link in this production, with certain cracks to it that needed tending. Coates’ strength in comic timing and adeptness to one-liners was what helped save the play, as well as the performances from the cast, which overall were very good, if not a little generic and clichéd at times. Talkabout started with good intentions, being based around an intriguing topic of debate, but sadly, fell short in delivering what could have been a brilliantly Beckettian or Pinter-esque production.
