I’ve been on a review­ing spree this week, so I passed this one onto our lovely guest review­er, who took up the mantle very well for his first time review­ing. Check out his piece below!

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Hole is unbe­liev­ably charm­ing.

The play itself is clev­erly writ­ten, util­iz­ing the charm of the char­ac­ters to get import­ant inform­a­tion across to the audi­ence. And hon­estly, what a cast to get the lot across. Green­peace, Pol­lu­tion, O‑Zone Girl, Speights, Romance, Cold. There’s lots to laugh through, in early awk­ward inter­ac­tions, lan­guage, Bel­gian con­fused for French (and under­stand­ably so).

The sta­ging was tight, noth­ing felt off or forced. All through­out I felt like I was wit­ness to people exist­ing and respond­ing, nev­er a cho­reo­graphed piece. The giv­en cir­cum­stances were nev­er lost either, you ALWAYS felt like it was cold. Atten­tion to detail was crisp. I was also thor­oughly impressed with the intim­acy coordin­a­tion. There was a lot of great ten­sion build­ing through­out but this paid off the abso­lute most when it came to the intim­ate moments.

The rela­tion­ships were incred­ible. Props to the entire cast, I was genu­inely amazed through­out but Stevie Han­cox-Monk blew my mind. I’ve nev­er seen them so charm­ing, so lov­able. I laughed with them and felt their pain, they were so emo­tion­ally gen­er­ous – I was spell­bound. To add one more point, their French accent was very sol­id.

Elle Woot­ton’s drunk act­ing was by far the best I’ve ever seen. Know­ing this is a feat even seasoned act­ors struggle to achieve, the believab­il­ity of her char­ac­ter­’s intox­ic­a­tion was a standout for me. So sick.

Lights (Isad­ora Lao) and sound (Phil Brown­lee) were bril­liant, com­pli­ment­ary to the world we were in and to the scene set­ting, along­side the pro­jec­tions layered on to the block set pieces. The use of the pro­jec­tions (designed by Rachel Neser) in gen­er­al were a win­ner here; for scene, for story, for com­bin­ing pur­poses with act­ing.  The set was simple and I nev­er felt a need for more set. Used effi­ciently. Sup­ply Boxes as boxes. Sup­ply Boxes as chairs.

I was really pleased I got to see this show, I’m really stoked that I got the chance to be in the audi­ence.

 

Hole is on at Circa Theatre until the 18th of Decem­ber. Tick­ets are very lim­ited due to dis­tan­cing rules. Pick them up here.