KID - SPECIAL REVIEW OF 8 APRIL 2010

Anyone who can review a day (yes a day) is alright by any standard. This is one of my favourites. (Note the Biz is referenced - his and other names changed to protect their innocence)


I went along to 8/april/10 under some duress after being wholly under whelmed by earlier instalments in the series such as 7042010 and 6-april-10.  Despite the obvious effect where such duress establishes a low bar over which to climb, not even this great helper of all mediocre performances - all-but sunken expectations - was able to inject enthusiasm into your reviewer.
 
Firstly, the positive.  The mis-en-scene was adequate.  The somewhat-clichéd set design faithfully captured the banal realities of inner-urban life - all cold, grey concrete though most of the action was to take place in the laden environment of an enclosed room - and this was aided by both costuming (normal) and lighting (natural).
 
That's over with then so, the not so positive.  Confusingly the work appeared to almost take as its genesis Seinfeld, the prototypical show about nothing.  Unfortunately in this case though without the saviour of comedy the emptiness was not to be filled by laughter, not even of the canned variety. Nothingness does not provide for much in the way of dramatic tension.  Perhaps the piece could be positioned within the farce tradition or even tragi-comedy though I fear that such generosity would not only be drawing the long bow to breaking strain, it would also involve the reviewer-cum-archer shooting themselves in the spleen with the cruel-tipped arrow. 
 
The sparse dialogue resulting from the fact huge tracts of the piece were performed with the main character alone on stage failed miserably in its attempt at putting the audience into a trance-like state of higher consciousness, unless of course you consider abject boredom punctuated  by brief hot flushes of frustro-anger to be the next level on the path toward enlightenment.  I do not.  The overplayed metaphor attempted through the repetitive presentation of our "hero" endlessly cycling through the same websites with his only engagement being the pressing of the refresh icon was clumsy at best and at worst a childish and insidious misrepresentation of the power of electronically mediated communication.
 
Ancillary characters gave mixed performances.  The Father conveyed a reasonably believable struggle with a humanity forced upon him by the creeping realisation of his own mortality.  The lunchtime scene where his inability to express his love for his child was writ large provided the work's most poignant moment. You are left with the feeling this is something that will never be resolved so much as manfully ignored and shared in the eye contact that provides the true meaning behind lines such as "You just have to keep plugging away."
 
The insertion of an idiot-savant finance wiz appeared an obvious tip of the hat to the GFC as the work arrogantly attempted to position itself in the grand sweeping themes of our times.  Despite the brevity of the contact, the protagonist and he did appear to share genuine chemistry.  Though capably played by newcomer BIZ, he was ultimately hamstrung by the lack of substance the cameo offered.  The same could be said for the other bit-part players who did not move the narrative forward through no fault of their own, rather there was no narrative to push.  Perfectly positioned to play nemesis, the foil of HUNTER was used to reiterate and reinforce the listlessness of the protagonist.  This interaction occurred in a scene set in a climbing gym that attempted to portray the desire to control the physical world as a response to lack of control over the world’s of mind and emotion. Interestingly, though better known for his Hip Hop performances than his acting, DIGGA turned in an acceptable lovable sounding board.  Some have suggested the lack of any female characters could expose the piece to the charge of misogyny.  The reviewer remains open to this criticism but is as yet unconvinced.
 
Part (though unsuccessful) meditation on Camus' absurd struggle, combined with Kafkaesque undertones circa The Metamorphosis, 8/april/10 was somewhat effective in the Brechtian sense of removing from the audience an emotional connection to the protagonist but being bereft of events - let alone narrative arc - it was ultimately incapable of providing an analytical focus point for critical engagement.
 
The quotidian drama(x)/tale(x)/pastiche(??) was overly long and cursed with an unsatisfactory ending, I was left with the uneasy feeling that with neither a sense of foreboding nor the hope of redemption 8/april/10 was probably a story that need not have been told.
 
3/10.