“It’s farcical, it’s absurd.“
Julia Newbould
3 psychiatrist visits
KXT Broadway
Sydney
The play bursts into action in a chaotic office with Holger Voss (Andrew Lindqvist) feeling totally pushed to his limits in the workplace. He is being bullied and thinks he’s going insane. But no one believes him, not his boss, not his wife, not the boss’s wife, and not the psychiatrist Dr Erich Asendorf (Tel Benjamin) to whom he is sent.
There is a Christmas party in the office. Robert Bertrand (Mark Langham) is Voss’s boss, and he’s had enough. He announces to Voss at the party that he wants to disappear – a more difficult process than he thought – and to Voss’s horror, Bertrand wants to leave the management of his business to him.
Bertrand’s wife Gerlinde Bertrand (Kath Gordon) has her heart set on starting a new life in Liguria – she embraces the Italian way of life. She is also a patient of Dr Asendorf who treats her by telling her to have a coffee and read her fortune at the bottom of the cup.
Tel Benjamin is very good as the psychiatrist who is very bad at his job. He doesn’t remember his patients, their names, who is married to whom, and with whom he himself is having sex with. His treatment methods are also ridiculous.
Voss’s bullies are Bertrand’s son Helmar (Jackson Hurwood) and employee Heidrun (Kandice Joy) and they are constantly plotting against him with the aim of driving him out of the business.
And to top it off, Voss’s wife (Lib Campbell) is sleeping with Dr Asendorf, whom she sent her husband to see.
It’s farcical, it’s absurd.
During the drama, a blonde Dutchwoman (Michaela Ellis) arrives at the Voss home to steal from their safe. Helmar wants to play scrabble with her, which his parents cannot understand – why wouldn’t he want to have sex!
To say there’s a lot going on gives an idea of the insanity that’s playing out on stage.
Boss Robert Bertrand finally escapes but returns in a wig as Francois, his half-brother. His wife falls for Francois and wants to run off with him.
The Dutch woman who has stolen his money wants to go away with Bertrand (although at this stage he is supposed to be Francois). There is madcap fun.
It is some time before we are faced with any reference to pigeons – for me, my theatrical brain always takes me to the madness of the pigeon keeping director of ‘Springtime for Hitler’ in The Producers, and we are not far away from that craziness here.
In this case, the significance of the pigeons is the homing instinct which keeps the
play in a loop.
Playwright David Gieselmann is German, which explains the Italian, Dutch, and French references in this European play.
Early in his career he worked in Berlin and London where he was mentored by provocative playwright Sarah Kane. His major influences include Alan Ayckbourn, Michael Frayn and Yasmin Reza. Their styles are varied and characters interactions are very different, Giesselmann melds together different styles and ends in an absurdist world.
The staging has the conceit of having the action play to two audiences sitting on opposite sides of the stage. The chaos reaches a crescendo and then the set goes black, and curtains open for it to be repeated for the other side of the audience.
The checkerboard stage provides this absurdist drama with an almost cartoonish artistic sensibility.
Director Eugene Lynch says the creative team and cast worked together to find a physical response to this challenging verbal farce, resulting in a highly physical production – which I found well-choreographed, and a little operatic.
The ending neatly wrapped the play. Each actor is invested in their role to help elevate the play to a most enjoyable level.
Julia Newbould, Theatre Now
Photo credit: Justin Cueno
