GROWN ASS WOMAN AND PETER THE SOBER VAMPIRE
Gryphon Theatre, 22 Ghuznee Street, Wellington
21/03/2019 - 23/03/2019
Production Details
Two solo shows in one hour featuring a cast of crazy characters including a vampire who’s sober and a grown ass woman who’s not.
Sikora & Resnik (We’re not a law firm) have both trained extensively in clown and have toured internationally. Their company Stupid Poets presents pure ridiculousness from Warsaw & Los Angeles straight to Wellington.
Rachel Resnik is a Grown Ass Woman, and she recently wrote this show and built her first shelf.
Have you ever wanted to see the real Smeagol? Then come to this show. (The camera adds ten pounds to him in the Lord of The Rings trilogy, we swear.) Peter leads a blood less life, and has recently become a licensed therapist. In this show, he runs a therapy session for the audience and all of his friends using magic tricks, poetry, and many other healing tactics.
Gryphon Theatre, 22 Ghuznee Street, Wellington
Thursday 21 – Saturday 23 March 2019
7:30pm
General Admission $20.00
Concession $15.00
Fringe Addict $14.00
Book Now
Wheelchair access available
Theatre ,
1 hr
The performers’ commitment to their characters and show wins the audience over
Review by Emilie Hope 22nd Mar 2019
Grown Ass Woman & Peter the Sober Vampire is a double-bill show squished into fifty-five minutes playing at Gryphon Theatre.
It starts with Grown Ass Woman, a solo-woman show performed entirely (including movie-trailer voiceovers) by Rachel Resnik. She first stumbles through the black curtains in a blue bridesmaids dress and a glass half filled with wine, as she gives her Maid of Honour’s speech for Anna and Greg’s wedding. The rest of the show is like this, small skits including a (rather amazing) opera singer trying to shatter a wine glass, an actor trying to control the muppet-style puppet with a potty mouth and a fervour for blowjobs, Gollum with a slight French accent trying to find a man to give her a precious, an Easter bunny auditioning for Playboy by singing “happy birthday, Jesus”, and her final skit of singing a full operatic number while the audience throws cheese balls at her, and she catches them to eat while singing.
Resnik is a skilled performer. However the show, while absurd, feels too rushed to hit any of the feminist points it’s trying to reach, yet at times feels like the message is too on the nose: “Is any of this obtainable? No.” I am also a bit heartbroken when there is a missed opportunity to further reference LOTR in her Gollum sequence, but that’s just my LOTR nerd lashing out.
Peter the Sober Vampire comes on stage to help with the clean-up. The transition is great, totally setting the tone for Peter the Sober Vampire, to the detriment of the fabulous theatrical elements Resnik was trying to portray. Peter, performed by Piotr Sikora, is a master of the polka AND a master of Zen – what more could you want?
Sikora openly pokes fun at the magic of theatre, getting the audience to close their eyes and think about him in order to appear on stage, or clapping his hands for a blackout, moving, clapping his hands again for lights up – transportation… Peter also has some absurdist moments such as having to call his wife, Roxanne, in Siberia with an old dial phone he gets from within his pants.
While Peter the Sober Vampire is fun, there are times when I have to think about his message: why is he doing this? What is the point? In true non-magic-of-theatre fashion, he slaps on his wholesome meaning at the end of the show, reminding us, “Peter is always with you, healing you, giving you hugs when you are sad.”
This is definitely not the highest calibre show available in Fringe, but the performers’ commitment to their characters and show wins the audience over and leads to everyone having a good time. Highly recommend joining the biggest polka dance in Fringe at the end of their show.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
Comments