The opening monologue of New Holland Theatre’s The American Astronaut ends with the line “This is the story of how I became a father. And oh yeah, it’s my birthday.” This non-sequiteur, accompanied by an eerily piercing look from the play’s antagonist, Professor Hess (Tim Camilleri), sets the tone for a thrillingly bizarre, out of this world production that is okay with not making sense.
This piece is an adaptation of a 2001 film which attempts to combine the genres of science fiction, musical and western. In what seems to be a somewhat farcical plot, astronaut Samuel Curtis (Liam Sutherland) is attempting to transport a girl to Jupiter as payment for The Boy Who Actually Saw A Woman’s Breast, who he can then take to Venus and trade for some other guy, who he can then transport to Earth. Or something.
The lighting and projection effects are impressively used in the relatively small venue of Fitzroy’s Workers Club, the myriad detailed props outstanding and the costuming very well attended to. Heralding the excellent production value is the energetic live band Daddy Ferguson and the Ray Babies, whose slide guitar is particularly rocking and whose score adds infinitely to the action. The five or six offbeat song moments are definite highlights of the one hour piece.
The way the actors deal with the absurd material and the overall pace lets the show down a little unfortunately and one gets the sense that something may have been lost in the process of transposing the cult film onto stage. Director James Wray writes “I encourage you to sit back, breathe in and dream with me.” Certainly with this piece a world has been created that you can sit back and enjoy, although perhaps not completely understand, but a tightening of the flow of this world wouldn’t be amiss.
Wray must be praised for some clever stage ideas elsewhere, however and the cast for their commitment, although they were at times inconsistent with their acting style. Definitely an interesting experience and a brilliantly unique fringe show that takes us off this planet and would have been amazing if it hit all the marks.
