Walking tours of cities are fun. A lot of them are billed as ghost tours, because even if they aren’t all about the supernatural, city streets are haunted by their past. Looking at buildings built a long time ago and hearing stories about who used to live there – or died there – brings them to life in a way that a dry historical or architectural tour might not.
Matt Bell’s
Dead to Me isn’t about the deep, dark past of Melbourne though. It’s
about his personal history – and a date that went so badly, it haunts him to
this very day. If the distant past isn’t scary enough, the life of a
desperately single gay man can be terrifying.
Trying to
get anyone to engage in proper conversation on dating apps is hard enough, but
if men are reluctant to talk before meeting, then a man who actually asks
questions and gives interesting answers leaps over a very low bar. Going on a
first date with someone who seems interesting can still be fraught, though.
There are a lot of great details in this one-hour version of Matt’s two dates with a man who turns out has done a lot of “social media stalking”. Fittingly, Matt pulls out a red flag for us to follow as he walks through the city – about 12 kilometres-per-hour faster than the average straight person. (He does offer to slow down, because sometime heterosexuals can benefit from inclusion, too.)
The first
dinner was at a fancy French restaurant, followed by an evening at the Athaneum
Theatre seeing Ghost Stories – which is not Matt’s cup-of-tea at all. (In fact, tea isn't his cup-of-tea. He's a real glass-of-water man!) After
that, we wander through the city visiting venues from the second date, which
deteriorates rapidly, as soon as Matt discovers his date knows his full name,
phone number and home address. Frightening!
Matt’s
style is frenetic – he doesn’t drink coffee, because he bounces and flails
enough, even when he’s standing still. He’s got some cute observations about
queer dating culture and there’s a lovely running thread about being a
millennial who hates confrontation. The show moves a lot though, and even as
we’re entertained by suitable pop songs in our ears while we’re walking, walking
at pace from place to place often dulls the momentum of the show.
And being
on the streets of Melbourne can be distracting, as when - standing outside the State
Library – a couple of teenage girls tried to get in on the act by dancing in
the middle of the circle we’d made around Matt. It’s tricky to come back from
being upstaged by a couple of Gen Z’s who just don’t give a damn about a show
in progress. That was funny.
The blurb
on the website gives the impression that the show will be a bit more
freewheeling – a variety of stories about running into exes or being ghosted, but this version of the show
focuses squarely on this one guy Matt dated with the occasional digression.
It’s a heap of fun as the chaos increases and you get to know Matt better and
better and the date gets worse and worse, though.
The show is
a bit over an hour and there’s more hurried walking than I would have liked.
But it’s fun to see the city of Melbourne haunted by awkward gay dates rather than its
actual colonial history for once.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Dead to Me is on as part of Midsumma tonight and next Thurs/Fri/Sat only.
Comments