A Man Walks Into a Bar is set and staged in a bar, the one in foyer of the Basement theatre.  As the fresh-faced young man who walks in, Ryan O’Kane has actually been here all along, working the box office.  There’s an attractive young woman too, played by Jodie Hillock, working behind the bar. 

And then what happens?  That’s a tricky question to answer, narrative-wise.  For an awkwardly uncertain non-opening, the man whose name is alleged to be Cosmo but whom prefers to be just ‘the man’ sits furtively grinning as he looks round the table-seated crowd with an air of expectation. 

The woman sits across from him at their small beverage-covered table, giggling uncontrollably at first as the man announces the title. The duo launches into a rapid-fire exchange of variations on that most classic of joke conventions, certainly in the top five somewhere along with light bulb changing, road crossing, crossbreeding and blondes. 

The repetitious motif has a poetic rhythm to it, as when a number of outlandish cracks are post-scripted with the wise axiom ‘there’s just no picking them’. With some more elaborate story-driven setups and among the rapid-fire one liners, many clues and details regarding just what the heck is actually going on here are supplied as the pair antagonistically talk over one another, stealing punchlines and generally deriding each other.

It’s clear is that these two have known each other for a long time, spent a good deal of that time drinking to excess, and appear to be attempting to utilise the comic format to somehow put their tumultuous and estranged relationship into perspective.  For themselves that is – even though we’re acknowledged and frequently addressed directly, they are mostly alone together in their private world upon which we’re eavesdropping.

Excellently performed in a very natural style, as though we’re just indulging a couple of exhibitionists like many one may encounter on a night out, there is still a manifestly absurdist quality to David Geary’s script.  It also brings local classic two-hander Skin Tight to mind, trading a classic rural poem for a clichéd humorous formula to create an altogether more dada-esque portrait of two lives spent together.

To summarise: A man walks into a bar and spends an hour ranting with a woman, to the frequent mirth and occasional provoked thought of a crowd of appreciative paying onlookers. Sheepish apologies to the company for getting the opening date wrong. Only 36 seats for two more nights folks – and for just ten bucks it’s a total gift!
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