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Review- Peacock Boy

November 14, 2008

Date Reviewed: 14th November, 2008
Venue: Contact Theatre

star

Billed as a ‘modern fairytale,’ Peacock Boy tells of a vain, posturing poseur who is doomed to sleep with every woman he meets until he finds his one true love. Every night he beds another unsuspecting bird and forces her to pledge her troth before the clock strikes twelve and he is transformed into a monstrous peacock.

The ‘modern’ twist is that when he finally gets the girl she turns him down, in a pseudo-feminist take on the Cinderella story.
Unfortunately the sub-par acting, direction, stage design and writing undermined what could have been an interesting take on sexual ethics. And if I had not been reviewing the play I would have joined the other half-dozen audience members who walked out halfway through.

The central spectacle is the peacock boy himself, who only emerges on to the stage in the final minutes of the play. In the meantime the audience is left to imagine his sexual conquests - while staring at an empty stage and the vibrating shadow of the peacock’s tail.

Whilst the deserted stage was useful - as it allowed several members of the audience to make an unobserved swift exit – it broke the play’s momentum and was visually dull. Sadly this clumsy staging was coupled with unconvincing acting: Matthew Lewney’s portrayal of the lothario peacock boy was cringe-worthy rather than titillating, and his beau Elspeth (Elizabeth Rose) chose to fiddle with her jumper at all moments requiring emotional intensity.

The result was intensely annoying and compounded by the inane musical interludes, which added nothing to the plot or atmosphere and slowed the show’s pace to a standstill. There were a few redeeming features, such as the quirky grandma puppet, but over all the show’s interesting premise was let down by poor performances and second rate staging.

-Harriet Shawcross

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