We’re Bastards – Two Peas

Overview

We're Bastards is a new work by actor and writer Oleg Pupovac in the same vein as Neil LaBute’s Bash trilogy of plays and Tracy Letts’s Bug. The naturalistic play invites us inside the troubled heads of 'white trash' siblings Joe Jnr and Darling Mae, who enjoy drinking, smoking and fighting.

The Old 505 space is transformed into a living room in cosy disarray; a hideous brown sofa sits in the centre and an upstage book shelf is adorned with a confederate flag, framed pictures of Jesus, and Joe’s high school sports trophies. A coffee table in the centre sports empty Budweiser cans and Joe’s tin of snuff.

Growing up with a single mother in Anniston, Alabama, Joe (Pupovac) and Darling Mae (Tara Clark) fight over their different versions of their crappy upbringing. Darling Mae visits their mother’s grave regularly while Joe prides himself on remembering her as a neglectful, alcoholic failure. The struggle is a familiar one — brother and sister form a strong, semi-erotic bond as they try to overcome a difficult shared past, a dynamic Steve McQueen nailed so well in Shame when Carey Mulligan playing Sissy says to her brother, “We're not bad people. We just come from a bad place.”

Pupovac’s text is straightforward and his plot turns are fairly predictable, but that’s just fine because the show is well executed. Glen Hamilton’s direction is tight, though the challenge presented by the climax occurring in the first scene is that the pace falls away somewhat towards the end.

Pupovac is a talented actor underneath that greasy undercut and Clark is every bit his match. Luke Carson playing Baby Daddy is used sparingly in one scene only and we’d like to see more of him. The performances are what make We’re Bastards a good piece of theatre — these actors know what they’re doing.