Reviews

Boy Girl Wall

17 April - 4 May, MTC Theatre, Lawler, Melbourne

Starring: Lucas Stibbard
Written by Matthew Ryan and Lucas Stibbard
Realised by Matthew Ryan, Lucas Stibbard, Neridah Water, Sarah Winter
Music by Neridah Waters

If only we all had imaginations like The Escapists. In Boy Girl Wall, Lucas Stibbard performs the most outstanding one-man show I have seen in my life.

Boy Girl Wall opens with Stibbard setting the story straight. This play is not an average love story where a young Di Caprio meets a feisty Kate Winslet upon a doomed ship. No, it is a story about love - a destined love that is separated by a wall. Armed with a piece of chalk, a few sock puppets and an overhead projector, Stibbard certainly demonstrates how endless theatre's potential really is.

Through the course of the play Stibbard brings to life 25 characters. He portrays roles such as star-crossed lovers Thom and Alethea, walls, ceilings, evil magpies and abstract concepts like days of the week. Days of the week? How can one even to characterise days of the week? Nonetheless, Stibbard successfully pulls off the drunk bogan party animal that is Friday.

While all of this takes place, an ambitious and bold young wall endeavours to do all it can to bring these two lovers together. With help from the power box and a few other inanimate objects, Thom and Alethea finally meet in the hall between their apartments.

Boy Girl Wall has won The Escapists the 2010 Matilda Award for Best Independent Production, Matilda Award nominations for Best New Australian Work and Best Direction, the Matilda Award for devising and producing Boy Girl Wall, and a Green Room Groundling Award for Best Production.

It is no surprise that Stibbard was also nominated for the 2011 Halpmann Award for best Actor in a Play. A graduate of the Queensland Collage of Art with an appearance in Bell Shakespeare's The Alchemist under his belt, he has also performed in many Fringe Festivals, as well as appearing in Windmill Theatre’s Gurg and Eating Ice-cream With Your Eyes Closed.

Boy Girl Wall is adventurous and upbeat and the perfect opening to the MTC 2012 Lawler Season. It is included on the 2012 VCE study list for Year 12 Drama, which almost makes me wish that I was studying Drama again so that I would have another opportunity to watch and analyse Stibbard’s performance.

Boy Girl Wall is physical theatre in its most hilarious form. It leaves the audience aching and crying with laughter from the very first magpie impersonation.

5 out of 5.

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