Matt has taken upon himself to become a patron of the arts, and so we supported his move by actually buying tickets to the play "Big Deal".
The night started amusingly enough at North Bondi Italian - which, by all accounts, is a good place to eat. Davina and Nick started the evening, asking for a table and being told to wait until everyone had arrived. Sue and Stephe arrived to join them, and got the same (increasingly hostile!) treatment. We were rescued by a more senior dude who saw reason, and arranged a comfy table, and we were then joined by Steph, Matt, Sam, Jeremy and John.
Unfortunately, we ordered relatively late (6.55pm for a 7.30pm departure), and our food didn't arrive until 7.35! So, it was a quick scoff (amusing enough, and the food was quite good - as far as you can tell in ten minutes or so), and then across to the Bondi Pavillion.
A festive air greeted us, as did Richard and Tom, rounding out the crew for the evening (Kristy preferring to work instead of play), and we had a pre-show drink and chat.
The show itself opened strongly, with all the themes of modern life on display, and some interesting and engaging characters (Dealer, Artist, Rebel, Loflyer, Hooker).
The production values were absolutely crap - which was a real distraction. Lighting changes were abysmal, the audio visual failed on pretty well every cue, and the audience was restless!
Unfortunately, this meant that there were quite a few walk outs towards the end of the (quite long feeling) first half - which, to their credit, the actors dealt with beautifully (together with their very solid handling of all the other lighting / audio / etc glithes).
In the end, perhaps a too earnest attempt to cover the entire field of modern life (and the occasional lapse into cliche) - but, I can't help but think that if the production values had supported the actors, perhaps I would have come away thinking it was actually pretty good...
You should go and see it in any case - support a young artist, have an interesting evening out, for next to nothing!
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