Mary-Jane Minear’s direction of David Williamson’s Australian modern comedy of manners is quick, sharp and concise, -mostly.

It’s a good tale which left me wondering where the obvious plot twist at the end had gone, and possibly that was intentioned.

All the players are solid, all experienced actors, and all deliver everything we’ve come to expect from them and St Jude’s. Accents always interesting, often in a good way! Acting as drunk is always a cause for concern, but this company did it well.

 

The real star of this production though is the scene change. A multi-scene production is always interesting for a company, where that company is St Jude’s this is of course exacerbated by restrictions of space. St Jude’s must have the best brains in the state at solving this problem, and the rotating stage works brilliantly for this show.

However, the scene changes were still too long, eventually they became almost another character, the black-out was the punchline, and every sharp one-liner made one anticipate a black-out.

 

The audience obviously enjoyed the whole, and applauded enthusiastically each scene end, -to begin with. Eventually though, even the most enthused friends of the cast could not muster a ripple, and at one point there was one solitary clap from one pair of hands. This should not have spoilt the play, and in a society with a lesser reputation it would not have, but St Jude’s have set themselves a higher bar, and the music at the scene changes started to become an annoyance. I was half expecting ET to show up.