Theatre Macabre: The Somnambulist and Meat

Overview

Thomas Sainsbury’s no stranger to black comedy, and as it turns out neither is Benjamin Teh.  These two playwrights have brought to stage the double bill, Theatre Macabre’s "Deadly Double Halloween Horror".

Written and directed by Sainsbury, The Somnambulist, or the sleepwalker for the layman (ha, what a pun) is a play that serves its purpose. It entertains. Some plays you come away from changed; you want to alter the course of human history, some plays you just laugh at. This was one of those. There were no great surprises except a bit of a twist at the end but it was a good droll watch, appropriate for the Halloween season.

The ladies within the work were fantastic. The sleepwalker, Argentinian tourist Jordana (Liesha Ward Knox) kills the neighbour’s dog, then people she knows and she kept me on edge the whole show, on her behalf. As the main protagonist, with not an ounce of humour, Knox balanced the piece out well. I found it fairly ironic that she wore a shirt with peace written on it. Yeah right, she was utterly haunted. Aria, played by Lee Smith-Gibbons, was Jordana’s awkward, socially inept landlady on the hunt for a man. In between, that is, talking to her rat, Ratty, and taking her mother’s ashes for walks (except on windy days). She was simply hilarious. The rest of the acting was good but these two took the cake. If you’re interested in seeing a show that’s worth a good laugh and if you’re a spot of a wuss then this is the kind of Halloween theatre that’s easy on the more timid soul.

Meat tells the story of a lodge owner who keeps on killing his guests and serving them up for dinner. The script is clever and coloured with an uncomfortable sense of humour.  Unfortunately the action did drag and I put this down to a the whole lot of black outs that took place in a relatively short space in time but the story was engaging and appropriately dark for the season. Luke Thornborough plays Harrison, an undercover detective with a crush on the lodge owners' daughter, Rachel (Rachael Longshaw-Park). He was cheesy and dorky and provided a good contrast to Joshua (Edward Newborn) the surly and sweary old man. He's a permanent fixture at the lodge and was the stand-out for me.

Overall, there were moments of missed dialogue because of a lack of projection even from the front row but otherwise it was a solid show. If you were an avid vegetarian activist I’d advise against this one because there’s raw meat being eaten on stage by Rachel, but then that could be a draw card for some.

For an evening of entertainment where the programme invites us to "question normality after", it's an experience to be sure. I’ve never before seen cannibalism on stage, and didn’t know somnambulism was a real word.  You’ll definitely leave with something.