I Love You Bro

Overview

As actor Tim Carlsen launches headfirst into an animated commentary of a teenage boy’s chatroom interactions, providing the voices of no fewer than 13 characters, the audience may, at first, find it hard to keep up.

But soon enough you are sucked in to the insidious web of online personas, just as 14-year-old John, as he is now known, becomes entangled in the personas he meets, and the ones he creates for himself.  With a few tips on cyberlingo (John’s online pal Magnum tells a joke, then before you know it John’s rolling on the floor laughing), John’s got you all caught up.  This is the mind of the chatroom junkie.

I Love You Bro tells the true story of a Newcastle teenager who constructed multiple online personalities, weaving a web of sex, lies and spies that ended with a plot to incite his own murder, all in the pursuit of unrequited love.

Australian playwright Adam J.A Cass has got it spot on – anyone who spent part of their teenage years chatting on MSN will find it hard not to recognise glints of their own hormone-induced online compulsions (to some extent, at least). Any parent who has wondered what their kids get up to online will recognise the closed door, the mumbles about not being hungry, the dull, but incessant clicks of the keyboard upstairs.

Carlsen is brilliant in this one-man play, allowing himself to fully embody the psyche of the teenage boy; despite carrying him inside his own man’s body, his performance is entirely convincing.

On opening night, after one and a half hours on stage with no interval, and from what I could see not even a sip of water, Carlsen paused before taking a bow.  He looked as if he might breakdown and vomit at the same time.

And I couldn’t help but feel giddy myself.  His performance is jolting, the story so disturbing it could only be true.  The play is provocative, and well worth the watch.