Brisbane review - Failure A Love Story: Innovative and Quirky

By Lilian Harrington

Failure A Love Story

Writer: Philip Dawkins

Company: Villanova Players

Location: Ron Hurley Theatre 28 Tallowwood St. Seven Hills

Season: November 8-10, 7 30pm and matinee @ 2 pm.

Bookings: Try Booking

The award winning play Failure A Love Story, presented by Villanova Players, is written by the American playwright Philip Dawkins, who has made a name for himself with other works such as: Miss Marx, Or The Involuntary Side Effect of Living, and The Homosexuals, which have all won acclaim and received nominations for the Joseph Jefferson Award, for Best New Work.

Dawkins is kept busy with writing, directing and teaching at University and presents his ideas in a rather quirky and different format which makes for an original approach. Directors, Rod Thompson and Maria Plumb, have been able to tap into this unusual aspect of Dawkins writing and have presented an intriguing and entertaining production, which includes some rhyming dialogue, slap stick humour, comedy that is amusing and satirical in tone with a sad but up-beat ending, Dawkin‘s point seems to be to prove that success and happiness can emerge from unpleasant circumstances through comedy.

This play cuts through “the 4th wall” and the actors speak directly to the audience and narrate events as they occur. This works quite effectively and is interspersed with a strolling Gramophone (Milton Scully), who sings songs from the era in acapella style throughout the play. As well as this, we see puppeteer, (Lynette Wockner) working with both a pet snake and a bird puppet, using vocal effects, alongside an old dog (Shane Fell) and a group who are ticking clocks (Bhaskara Setiawan, Tracy Reeves and Lynette Wockner). The play is a story about time, love, misadventure, and the Fail family who run a clock business in Chicago; it breaks every rule that is usually followed on stage. It presents everything in reverse order. It doesn’t lose anything in the telling, but rather it is unique in its approach.

As a member of the audience, I was impressed with the work and design created by the production crew ( Luke Monsour, Rod Thompson, and Cindy Monsour).They manufactured a series of moving overheads and timepieces which had been set up to indicate to the audience time and changes as events unfolded. The very clever use of overheads in this production really complimented the actors work on stage. This added to the flow and focus of the production and the sounds were made by actors.

The three Fail sisters: Nelly Fail (Sabrina Fu), Jenny June Fail (Sophie Morrison) and Gerty Fail (Erin Hall), were well cast and played their roles as the three young American sisters effectively. A stand out was their brother, John N Fail ( Nathan Seng), who played a character who was not good with people ,but had an affinity with wild life; He complimented the action and sang beautifully when required. His delivery was very clear and believable and contrasted with some characters whose diction lapsed at times perhaps this was due to “first night nerves”. The role of Mortimer, Mortimer (Lachlan Gregory Hugh), the young man who failed to marry any of the three sisters, due to a series of unfortunate events, needed to be played on different levels, but on first night Lachlan played the role on one level, when it could have been played differently.

 The set design was kept simple and effective; it depicted the early 1900s, an era of new developments, discoveries, automobiles, and cruise ships, with costumes which complimented the period and design; Villanova can be proud of this entertaining and innovative production.