Tea Tree Players Youth Production of “2061 A Space Idiocy” is a parody of Star Trek and other space-based movies and TV programs, including Dr Who.
Introduced by two cleaning ladies who are “cleaning” and “reactivating” the starship, the story is that the mission is to take Princess Barbie to Planet Zenos to be married. We have Captain Cook (Kirk), his son Spotsworth (Scotty) and the Vulcan Spook (Spock) plus other assorted staff from the Enterprise with adapted names. There was also a Security Team, Silver Androids, and alien creatures onboard and in outer space. Captain Cook lets ‘Spotty’ watch out for dangerous monsters and creatures in space, which provides lots of good visual gags on the Big Screen. Of course there are several twists in the story: for example, landing on another planet and strange hitchhikers who turn out to be benign, however the mission has a successful ending.
There were many jokes and puns, some funny, some “Dad jokes”, which were clearly spoken and well delivered by the actors, although they might not have understood them all. Local references, for example “Club Med Kangaroo Island” and classic lines “Beam me up Spotty” (Scotty) created good audience reaction.
The set design by Penny and Mike Phillips was very good, replicating the bridge of a starship complete with “transporter”. There were many creative props which Beth Venning found or created – for example, five sets of oversize “Spock” ears!
Mike Phillips’ sound and lighting effects were aurally and visually creative.
Jo Allenby and team’s costumes were colourful and inventive but also practical. We especially loved the neon uniforms of SPC 23 (Charlotte Nelson), IXL321 (Ebony Maxwell), HomeBrand (Quinn Kempe). The Silver Android, rainbow furry alien and “space monster” costumes were very ingenious too.
At times, the music was louder than the performers’ voices and that takes practice to project vocally either singing or speaking. I admire their courage and tenacity as many adults wouldn’t have the confidence to get up on stage and perform like these young people do. Sometimes their nervousness showed. However they carried on regardless and the action flowed on.
Well done Penny Phillips and Georgina Glessauf for inspiring, organising and directing 27 young potential stars and starlets, some of who played one role, and others played two or three roles.
There are too many performers to individualize comments. They all did their best and entertained us.
Dance choreography by Jo Wardle, Erin Hoskins, and Aimee Jordan; set construction and painting team and all the backstage crew and parents created a fun show with learnings for everyone.
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