Timeshare - Malthouse Theatre

Overview

We’ve all had that moment on holiday where we wish we could stay forever. Lally Katz’s Timeshare, a collaboration with New York director Oliver Butler, pushes that desire to its breaking point in a play with music that draws heavily on a swag of getaway tropes and the strength of its cast.

Carl (Bert LaBonté) runs Paradise, a rundown all-inclusive resort, where Sandy (Fast Forward’s Marg Downey) and her daughter Kristy (Brigid Gallacher) are nearing the end of their stay. While Kristy and her mum wait for the arrival of her brother Gary (Fayssal Bazzi), she’s fallen for resort worker Juan Fernando (also played by Bazzi), who seems more keen on practicing a traditional turtle dance with the fiery Maria (Gallacher), the other member of his 'entertainment squad'.

Bazzi and Gallacher’s ability to shift between their characters combined with Butler’s deft direction makes for terrific physical comedy, while LaBonté effortlessly steals scenes as the pathetic, entirely humourless Carl. Through it all Downey provides the perfect counterpoint to their antics, becoming increasingly helpless but remaining defiant in the face of the plot’s sly twists and revelations.

In Jethro Woodward’s subtle score that accompanies interludes between scenes we can see flashes of his brilliance as a composer for previous shows such as The Long Pigs, but overall the sound design in Timeshare is slick to the point of being workmanlike. It’s difficult — at times his music seems constrained by the awkward phrasing of Katz’s lyrics, and the biggest numbers suffer slightly by comparison with Meme Girls in the smaller theatre next door. Yet at the same time, it’s only by committing to this style that Timeshare’s music can give full voice to the awkward, helpless tenderness of these characters; from Carl singing ‘I Can Give You Time’ to the backing of an ultimately kitsch electronic organ track, or Kristy’s plaintive ode to Tinder, which helps to situate the world of the play firmly in the here and now.

Up until the satisfying reveal of her 'character', the voiceover Katz herself provides throughout the show feels like a device with murky clarity and intention. But just like the music and the dizzying lighting from veteran Paul Jackson, this sense of mystery is a way of capturing the dislocation and disorientation at the heart of this world.

As funny as the show is, Timeshare hinges on its treatment of mental health and dementia; the treatment of these topics by writer, director and cast is sensitive and affecting, and elevates the work above simple crowdpleaser into a fine and compelling new Australian work.

Read our interview with Timeshare creator Lally Katz here.

Image by Jeff Busby.