Sometimes – just sometimes – a theatre experience requires reflection.

The tyranny of the immediate, informed, articulate, witty and cutting response in 200 words or less can leave the reviewer shamefaced in the morning having burbled off something that, with sober (or sombre) reflection turns out to be ill-judged. Such was my fear when trotting off home after the opening night of Boy’s Life by Howard Korder.

Not that the production caused me any anxiety.

The Outfit Theatre Company’s Co-Artistic Director Joel Herbert is quoted on the company’s website as stating that ‘a ‘successful’ production must be entertaining and relevant. While this was certainly the case with the former, the latter, on reflection, was somewhat less successful leading to an odd, and somewhat rare, conflict: what to do when the actors and the production are much superior to the play? 

The Outfit Theatre Company are justifiably well known and well respected for their devised work, much of which has been written about on Theatreview, but this is their first foray into the world of the scripted play. They have made a cautious yet responsible choice and selected a play that hangs well on the broad and talented shoulders of the company.

Howard Korder’s Boy’s Life is what used to be called ‘a well made play’. It has structure, tight dialogue, sound characterisation and loads of good stuff for the actors to do and say. It also has a plethora of directorial challenges that Sam Shore has admirably risen to throughout. Boy’s Life clearly has merit as it earned Korder a 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama nomination.

It has the appearance of being radical and ‘out there’ in its content – the male rite of passage – but somewhere it falls short. It seems dated and more like an ’80’s comedy of manners that an in-your-face, modern look at the male psyche. It may well be that age has caught up with it as it does with all of us. Boy’s Life is, after all, older than some of its characters!

Yes, it’s a good play but it’s not a great play. Yes, it has something to say but are we still interested? Hasn’t all that is said in Boy’s Life been better and more bluntly said by Neil LaBute, David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Mark Ravenhill and Edward Albee? 

That said, this is the play The Outfit chose and it’s what they’ve done with it that is outstanding.

Staged on John Parker’s minimal set, worked to maximum effect by director and actors, Boy’s Life, unfolds in all its sleazy, dirty sock glory. We are told that “a man by any other name would still smell” and we are left in little doubt that this is true. This is smellovision at its most masculine. It’s also dialogue made rippingly real and shown at its scintillating best.

The men (Pete Coates, Joel Herbert, Andrew Ford and Devlin Bishop) give an object lesson to all actors in how to own a script. The dialogue races along, every word heard with clarity, accents true and maintained and Korder’s slim narrative is eaten alive and spat out with a passion and simplicity that is quite rare. This is very good stuff indeed.

Characters are also clearly delineated without cliché or apology. These are not nasty guys being played by nice actors, these are simply what they appear to be – guys living an ’80’s life – and this is truly refreshing. To see characters built and embodied with this degree of subtlety is outstanding.

The women (Nicole Jorgensen, Jacqui Nauman, Sarah Graham, Toni Rowe and Ema Barton) are less important than the men in the grand scheme of Korder’s play but no less so in Sam Shore’s excellent production, where they teeter and totter like pretty playthings but devilishly serve the requirements of the text with no less skill than the men. In the hands of these excellent craftsmen and women the dialogue sings and Korder’s witty text comes to life in the best way imaginable. 

Impressive? Sure is! It’s worth suggesting at this point that, if the tools used by an ensemble-based company to make a devised work can be so successfully applied to a text, then this is a production model that might well be used by others to similar effect.

On reflection this is an excellent production. The Outfit prides itself on being an ensemble and well they might. I’m honouring this by not singling out any actor for special praise but honouring instead their uniform commitment to the concept. The concept of ensemble is at the heart of all exceptional theatre creation and there are elements of this production which are quite exceptional: the acting, the way the text is owned, the relationship between text and physical action, all of which are flawless.

The set has that wonderful Parkeresque balance of deliciousness and practicality, and the evening is playful and fun. It’s to the considerable credit of director and actors that the end of the play worked so well, on Wednesday night, leaving the sizeable audience to balance the seesaw of male hedonism against the pragmatism of heterosexual survival as they exited to a crisp autumnal Auckland night.

If you like excellent theatre with fine acting Boy’s Life is thoroughly worth a visit, and if you like ensemble playing it doesn’t get much better than this.
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This 1980s character-driven drama of manners is billed as a ‘battle of the sexes’ but the friendships between the three leading men are the real engine and intriguing core of the play. How does the 20-something alpha male react when his sidekicks start to rebel? How do they react when he tries to talk about (ew) his feelings? The dynamics are as subtle, bitchy and complicated as those of the supposedly catty gender.

American playwright Howard Korder dissects stock characters in original ways: the arrogant man-about-town (Joel Herbert), the "agreeable" follower with the whipped dog look (Pete Coates) and the Woody Allen-esque nervous goober (Andrew Ford). All three leads in this Outfit Theatre production are self-assured, excellent actors who know their characters extremely well. [More]
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For more production details, click on the title above. Go to Home page to see other Reviews, recent Comments and Forum postings (under Chat Back), and News.  

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer