Masterclass

Overview

This is a review of the 2012 run of Masterclass at 107 Projects. The show returns to kick off the year at the Old Fitzroy Theatre in 2015.

Masterclass, a two-man pantomime by Gareth Davies and Charlie Garber, was first shown as part of the Imperial Panda Festival in 2011. For reasons unknown (popular demand? to stimulate cash flow? conquer boredom?), they're back, this time performing at 107 Projects in Redfern.

107 Projects is a fantastic new space comprised of a theatre, six artist studios, a small vintage stall and exhibition space that is non-for-profit, so all proceeds are poured back into the space.

The opening night was packed with a raucous crowd drinking longies in the foyer (it's BYO). We file into the theatre to the sound of a blaring punk pop song that is paused intermittently for a voice to instruct the audience to "not crinkle chip packets too loudly" and to "please refrain from coughing". Garber and Davies walk on stage and proceed to set up a keyboard and berate the lighting guy, ignoring the presence of the audience.

Thus begins the masterclass, an acting seminar that draws on the past of the greatest of all actors, Davies, who was quite literally born into the theatre. He now lives in a Dream Forge, where he has the ability to look through a telescope back into the past. He takes us to the time of his birth, when his mother was a chorus member in Les Mis; Davies was cast as a baby and stayed in the production until he was 21.

The rest of the play follows his ascension as an actor and the cataclysmic event that caused him to quit. There is a carefully preserved sense of mystery in the play, so I won't give away too much. Let's just say Garber and Davies are intrinsically connected through theatre, a relationship far deeper than anyone else could ever hope to experience.

The absurdity, wordplay, and slightly hysterical drama make this play knee-slappingly funny. Never have I heard such a wide variety of startlingly loud, foghorn laughs. It almost had an air of improvisation, as if the two of them were mucking around together one day, kept the joke going for an hour, and presented it on stage the next day.

Full of uncontained energy and wit, this show is best after a few drinks on a Friday night — you will leave feeling refreshed and smiling rather than contemplative and slightly depressed. Masterclass can laugh at itself and laugh at you while you're laughing at it, all at the same, disorderly, time.