(Above: Lisa Derryn
Overy & Roberto Pombo. Pic Mark Wessels)
I so wish this show
could have had a longer run. I could easily have watched it more than once.
(Review by Shannon Kenny)
The Agents is a rip-roaring feast of side-splitting comedy, artful theatricality and acerbic wit and social commentary served up by the fabulous trio of Kyla Davis, Roberto Pombo, Lisa Derryn Overy and director, Toni Morkel.
Writers and performers, Derryn Overy, Pombo and Davis are Linda, Venter and Brenda, the titular Agents in this hysterically funny, sharply satirical, tour de force. The cast’s chemistry and comic timing are sublime as they flit nimbly from scene to scene, and transform into a multitude of hilarious and very recognisable characters, from sellers, to developers, security personnel, hapless buyers and neighbourhood ‘types’.
Brenda, Venter and Linda burst onto stage with the enthusiasm, energy and inexorable appetites for a successful sale. Boss-babe Brenda (in the best-ever ‘Karen’ wig) and 2IC Venter school the fledgling Linda in the ways of operating in their cut-throat business - in a society and economy as nuanced and idiosyncratic as ours.
The agents’ schemes for enticing prospective buyers are hilariously hyper-real versions of all too familiar ‘hooks’ - the glossy pop-up banner advert, the sales pitch, catchy videos, the hard-sell deal-closure and we’re even given flashes of the agents’ own cringe-worthy office and inter-personal politics.
The script deftly unpicks, stitch by stitch, the seams of an eco-system which at its worst has its unscrupulous minions peddling hopes and dreams while simultaneously exploiting the fears and apprehensions of those very dreamers. It casts a beady eye at a society whose desire for a patch of land (or 35 square metres of loft living in the gentrified inner city), bonhomie and security is tripped up by its own self-centredness and prejudice.
What I love about this production is that while it is darkly funny and the satire is truly biting (yes, there are even security agents, rendered as hounds), it never veers into cynicism. The bachelor and his dream of loft living; and the couple on a quest for their forever home are handled with genuine sensitivity and tenderness. One particularly memorable and affecting scene tracks Jacques (Pombo) and Tanya (Overy), from first date through child-birth to dotage - a masterclass in consummate physical theatre, faultless characterisation and creating that perfect ‘selah’ moment.
The fabulous cast bring to life a neighbourhood WhatsApp group, replete with the jibes, dog-whistles and emoji responses to messages we’ve all come across. Relatable much.
All of this is delivered to brilliant comic effect and with skilled theatricality - rapid-fire lines that land just-so; physical gags conveyed with artistry and a set consisting of a banner ad and a patch of astro-turf that in its tackiness speaks volumes about authenticity (or lack thereof) and the confines of a system designed to extract the maximum from people and the land, with little to no regard for either.
Throughout our hilarious journey through the vortex of the property industrial complex, this play asks big questions about agency (excuse the pun) of the moneyed and the disenfranchised; about fears, real and imagined; about the kind of people we want to be; about the society and world we want to live in - and at what cost to ourselves, society and the planet.
Along with winning a very deserved Ovation at the National Arts Festival Fringe in Makhanda, The Agents ensemble also received a prestigious Fleur Du Cap nomination for their exceptional performances.
I so wish this show could have had a longer run. I could easily have watched it more than once.
Thank-you Kyla Davis, Lisa Derryn Overy, Roberto Pombo and Toni Morkel for bringing this hysterically funny dystopian fantasy to the Seabrooke’s stage.
I look forward to more of what this ensemble will conjure in the future! Bring it on! – Shannon Kenny
Posts
