Stories I Want to Tell You in Person

Overview

This review is based on the Belvoir run of Stories I Want to Tell You in Person in April 2013.

As a piece of stand-up comedy, Stories I want to Tell You in Person is faultless; rich, hilarious and warm. But considering Lally Katz is one of Australia's best playwrights, it is slightly odd that she's doing stand-up in one of Australia's best theatres, about the fact that Belvoir never staged the play they commissioned her to write, ostensibly because Simon Stone was too busy to direct it. No matter how charismatic her performance, at the end of the day I was frustrated that we weren't watching the play she wrote instead.

Katz arrives on stage in front of a glittery gold curtain designed by Ralph Myers, and she is thrilled to be there. She bursts through with aggressive enthusiasm and promptly finds her place on stage on top of a mark saying 'Stand Here'.  She tells us a bit about herself — she grew up in the US and then moved to Canberra, hence her interesting accent. What follows is a farrago of stories about psychics, love, her subconscious and a commission from Belvoir to write a play about the Global Financial Crisis.

She strikes a handsome balance between the sincerity of her beliefs in magic and acknowledging how ridiculous they are. Her accents are accurate and she wisely opts out of doing a Pakistani accent as she admits she is incapable of it. Her karaoke rendition of 'Don't Cry for me Argentina' will make you cry if you have the remotest sense of pitch. She admits she is tone deaf and belts it out anyway. The joy of the piece is Katz's famous Apocalypse Bear, who appears in many of her plays and is a kind of theatre mascot.

As a piece of entertainment, it is idiosyncratic, good, clean fun. As a piece of programming, it appears narcissistic and short-sighted. The work does not show Belvoir in the best light, making the company look unsupportive of new work. Gifted as she is at stand-up comedy, her skills and talent as a playwright have been wasted. I look forward to seeing her GFC play on the main stage soon.