Truck Stop

Overview

Truck Stop by Lachlan Philpott was commissioned by Q Theatre, developed in Penrith, and is playing at the Seymour Centre in Sydney until late June. In 2011, Philpott's Silent Disco was so well received that students danced on the stage during interval in a rush of theatrical bonhomie. Truck Stop doesn't have an interval, so control yourselves. Also, it's a bit hard to jive to the theme of teenage prostitution.

Philpott is tackling a brittle topic in Truck Stop, using real stories and interviews with Penrith high school students as the basis for this dramatisation. Sam (Eryn Jean Norvill), Kelly (Jessica Tovey), and Aisha (Kristy Best) are a trio of self-named SKANKS (lending their initials to the acronym) whose lives are dominated by the sexualisation of pop culture and advertising. Ringleader Sam's overt raunchiness is reflective of a wider raunch culture, also described by Ariel Levy in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs. Levy points out that now it's girls as well as boys who notch up sexual quantity in favour of quality. Sam and Kelly take this to the next level when they leave school one recess to hang out at the local truck stop.

Philpott has mentioned elsewhere that he's trying to avoid a moral stance on the story, but he doesn't quite manage to do so. The piece is didactic insofar as the general structure is a psychological whodunnit — what made them do it? It searches for a cause that we can learn from and blame. Philpott's text treats the protagonists as patients rather than agents, which is thankfully counteracted by well-rounded characterisations from the cast. There's a kind of paternalism in Truck Stop that is absent in shows like Once and for All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are so Shut Up and Listen by Ontroerend Goed, which is much more by teenagers for teenagers.

That said, the piece is as entertaining as it is educational, and the performances are all together great, with the shapeshifting Elena Carapetis (who plays all the supporting roles) acting as the real binding agent for the ensemble.