Mr Kolpert – pantsguys and ATYP Selects

Overview

A couple with a secret invite another couple over for dinner. It’s a familiar premise. But unlike Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Mr Kolpert has considerably more laughs. And although there's plenty of colour in the set design, this play is pitch black on the spectrum of dark comedies.

Fledgling company pantsguys have been racking up some success lately. We've had the stress-ridden sixth formers of Punk Rock and even more recently the melancholic family saga, On the Shore of the Wide World; however, Mr Kolpert, by German playwright David Gieselmann, offers an opportunity to loosen things up a bit. Under the charismatic direction of James Dalton, this play is a pretty wild ride.

In a no-frills apartment, Sarah (Claire Lovering) and Ralf (Tim Reuben) are expecting guests. As they hurriedly tidy up, their conversation is strung together of half-sentences and unfinished thoughts. Then Ralf blurts out to visitors Edith (Paige Gardiner) and Bastion (Garth Holcombe) that they have murdered a co-worker. Though immediately palmed off as a joke, the question of the possibly deceased accountant, Mr Kolpert, keeps cropping up. It’s a wry party game that doesn’t quite feel like a game. Indeed, the tension of the play is built around the confusion between confession and elaborate practical joke.

Lovering and Rueben are a good match as the would-be killers. They oscillate between cool and collected and outrageously over-the-top. Holcombe is wonderful as the prickly architect, Bastion, and Gardiner is simply hilarious as his co-operative wife, Edith. Brimming with faux innocence and gawkiness, she is magnetic even when not delivering lines. Both these characters have a psychotic edge and undergo something of a role reversal as the play unfolds.There’s also a pizza delivery guy (Edan Lacey) that gets sucked into the action, lending a deadpan humour.

I wondered why Ralf and Sarah allow their secret to hover so close to the surface. But then, as thrill-seekers, it becomes apparent that each character is yearning to “feel something again”. And murky motives become less of a problem as the play spirals into a taboo-busting Tarantino-esque blood bath. It is fast-paced and truly unpredictable.

When it comes to staging, Mr Kolpert feels like an ambitious project, but it's realised through some creative choices. The set is splattered with fluro paint, and there’s UV lights, smoke and bubbles.

Taking the dinner party disaster genre to new levels, Mr Kolpert will keep you on your toes. Although the performances of Gardiner and Holcombe really stand out, the physical comedy is a collective effort and given the constraints of the space, it’s probably as fluid as it can be. In any case, this entertaining play is like being stuck inside an absurd practical joke that just won't end.