Thea and Arvy are best friends having a sleepover at Thea’s house. Thea is texting with her boyfriend. Arvy is manic, restless and annoyed that Thea is distracted from their alone time. These sleepovers are a regular thing but tonight they are going to open up more than they ever have in their fifteen-year-old lives.
Years later,
Thea and Arvy meet in a bar. They have lost contact but their teenage
friendship and secrets still feel fresh and vital when they make contact again
after living vastly different lives.
Given the
back-and-forth structure of You’re Being Dramatic, I wondered if this
was a kind of memory play. Where the truths of their teenage years would be fudged
by their adult memories and that the strange knocking at the door, which Arvy
can hear much earlier than Thea, would remain inexplicable. But it’s explained
away as local boys; misogyny banging at the door of their safe childhood space.
The scenes
of the girls bonding and tell long-held secrets has the ring of truth about it,
though it’s hard for me to imagine fifteen-year-olds talking so clearly and
openly about their anxiety and mania. But mental health is much more
openly-discussed these days, and it’s been a long time since I was in high school.
Thea and Arvy feel like real people going through that hormonal stage where
everything is Very Dramatic and things always feel a little bit out of control.
The scenes
with the adult versions are less convincing, though. Most of these future
scenes are played as monologues, where dialogue might have allowed us to feel
as in-the-moment there as we do when they are kids – lazing around on two mattresses
that are pushed together and covered by pillows.
Interspersing
future and past in such short, fragmented moments stops the dramatic flow of
the play. Moving the actors from bed to table and back again during numerous
scene transitions becomes irritating after a while. Playing with past and
future is occasionally affecting – watching innocent teenage drinking contrast
with a recovering addict adult version of Arvy has real power. But the central
truth and secret of the play is quite obvious early on because of this choice
to give us glimpses of the future, while we indulge in the past.
Playwright
Zadie Kennedy McCracken’s dialogue is energetic and revealing for the most
part, though some of the future monologues are overwritten and hamper being
able to empathise with what these girls and then women have been through. And
the play outstays its welcome – later diversions into depictions of
misogynistic men and the resolution of the banging at the front door feel
superfluous. There were at least three moments deep into the play that felt
like an ending and yet the play continued.
Megan
Mitchell is having fun as Thea, but Jess Sofarnos’ Arvy stands out as the world-weary
lesbian, even when she’s fifteen. Sofarnos finds real pathos on Arvy’s
later-in-life story (her monologue about everything she’s done since she last
saw Thea is a highlight) and the performance feels well-rounded and lived-in.
There’s
some real insight and spice in the depiction of teenagers chatting and digging
into the drama of their lives. But I came away not quite sure what McCracken
wanted to leave us thinking or feeling. Yes, there’s a sadness at a friendship
lost, but in the overall tapestry of their lives, I wasn’t sure if that one
night in their teens was dramatic enough to really change who they became as adults.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
You’re
Being Dramatic
closes at Theatre Works’ Explosives Factory space tonight
Photo: Morgan Roberts
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