“a very sharp, pacy script with many laugh out loud moments.”
Julia Newbould
3.5 Disney Princesses
Venue: KXT on Broadway
Sydney
Dates: Until May 10th
Lewis Treston is a very good playwright. He has dialogue, he has plot and he has the zeitgeist that is about our time. His most famous works to date are Hubris and Humiliation (STC 2023) and Hot Tub (Belvoir 25A 2024). Both are snappy, clever productions.
Time is moving quickly and although IRL was written in 2020 as a contemporary work it is starting to already date with some of the language and pop culture references. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, merely a sign of the times.
In IRL, Treston is working with a very small cast, just four actors, and they are simply amazing. Andrew Fraser as Alexei swirls onto the stage dressed in cosplay from his favourite Disney Princess. He is on a dating site and arranging to meet “T” – the man he’s been seeing online- IRL. They’re going to meet blindly at a cosplay convention but it doesn’t work out quite so simply. T shows up and is mugged – Alexei/Princess finds him and befriends him. There is a connection but who is the connection with? T doesn’t know it’s Alexei, Alexei has lied and isn’t sure how to redress this situation.
Meanwhile, Alexei’s best friend –famous actress Taylor – is going through some mental health issues. She doesn’t feel supported by her best friend, or by anyone around her including her two new writers, Aaron Sorkin and Diablo Cody. They keep rewriting her “marvel” type character and it’s making her escape into other worlds.
Leon Walshe plays “T” (Thaddeus) and others. He plays his role as the nervous, new-to-dating and new to the gay world with great pathos. Bridget Haberecht as Taylor Scott is brilliant as she is with the other characters she plays and Dominic Lui rounds out the talented quartet.
IRL is about the crossovers between real life and cosplay, and acting, growing up, and telling the truth. How real is real life, and ultimately how much are our real lives shaped by the make-believes controlled by a small number of corporations? It’s a lot to take in, but the journey is so entertaining that it’s a fun trip – and trippy it most certainly is. It’s a very sharp, pacy script with many laugh out loud moments.
Treston describes IRL as another one of his ebullient queer romcoms with two teens struggling to step into the truth of their feelings.
“The dialogue is overstuffed with pop-culture citations and while there is pleasure in getting the references, I am posing questions about the pervasive way fiction enters, and perhaps dictates, our social reality,” he says. “It’s like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, but she never quite reaches the bottom—she just keeps falling.”
The ending is chaotic, descending into a real-life diatribe against the controllers of the cinematic memory makers from our past, and ultimately takes a step towards a happily ever after.
Three and half Disney princesses
Julia Newbould, Theatre Now
