‘Old Love’ is the latest play for adults from The Last Great Hunt, an outstanding WA production company.
This 75-minute, hilarious tale that was adroitly written by Chris Isaacs, can be seen in the main theatre at the Blue Room, James Street, Northbridge nightly at 7.00 pm, until Saturday 2nd May.
The scene is a sitting room in a large suburban house. Joe Lui’s lighting was used to ‘freeze’ time and allow the characters’ thoughts to materialise. Atmosphere reinforced by Brett Smith’s sound design.
Beautiful Gabby (Arielle Gray) returns home after a hard day at the office, to find that her partner, Jim (Nick Maclaine), despite being on his day off, has still not cleaned the house as promised. To make things even worse, Jim has invited his good friend, Bobby (Tim Watts) around for a drink; partly as a friendly gesture, but mainly for them to meet his new girlfriend, Florence (Nicola Bartlett), about whom Bobby has been raving for weeks.
When the guest couple arrive, Gabby and Jim’s jaws drop. This ‘wonderful, superhuman woman’ is twice Bobby’s age. Flo is an aging, but smartly dressed Hippy, who fawns over Bobby taking every chance to give him a loving peck. In return, Bobby just glows with happiness, smitten at his new partner’s worldly experiences.
Gabby has trouble holding back on her inner feelings on this impeccable woman.
Prize-winning writer, Chris Isaacs has proved many times in the past to be a clever writer. He has the knack of very subtle changes in sentence structure and story threads, allowing his plays to smoothly develop whilst taking the story into unknown territory.
Over the years, almost all of this talented team, from the director to techies have been nominated for, or won, major theatrical awards. Director, Jeffrey Jay Fowler and his assistant Adriane Daff, have brought out the wonderful humour hinted at between the lines of the perfectly structured script. Isaacs has created four very different, rich characters and the fabulous cast members, with dramaturg guidance by Gita Bezard, have given a brilliant depth to their persona.
Tim Watts was hilarious as the besotted lover. As the older woman, Nicola oozed cougar-sex from every pore. Arielle displayed her distaste at the situation with venom almost dripping. Nick as the househusband seemed happy just to tag along with whatever happened. Superb team work.
A very funny, fresh and original play with a bit of a sting in the tail. Immaculately presented.