My family is pretty well adjusted, these days. We all get on well, my brothers and I have a great relationship, and my parents are the nicest people I know. But I remember a time when my two brothers and I were so in each other’s way that looking at either of them the wrong way could be cause to literally [figuratively] run for my life. I still remember, vividly, how that felt. Luckily, with hindsight I can see it as funny more than anything. Our idiosyncrasies and constant arguments, the ways we knew how to get on each other’s nerves, they were all urgent and intense at the time but now they’re cause for laughter.
We often get together and rehash our old battles, showing off our scars and talking openly about how things felt or seemed at the time, and we laugh a lot. But every now and then when you’re walking the fine, fine line of old childhood dramas, you tip off the side and those old dynamics rear their ugly head. Laughter turns to anger, old wounds aren’t as healed over as you expected, and suddenly there’s thick tension in the room. But to anyone watching, it’s bloody great, because a bunch of adults suddenly plunge back into old anarchy. New battles are fought over old wars, and everyone seems to revert to the roles of 20 years ago. Which brings me to Reagan Kelly.
I was lucky enough to see Reagan Kelly last Friday night; a play performed at Metro Arts in Brisbane CBD by a truly talented cast from Rocket Boy Ensemble. An incredibly sharp and irreverent comedy about a wry young woman slowly being bored to death in Brisbane Suburbia, I’m so happy to say the audience and I were losing our shit laughing for the entire show. The best play I’ve seen in a very long time, it deserves a much larger stage, but at the very least it deserves to be seen at Metro Arts. What could have been a dark comedy take on an intelligent young woman throwing her life away on drinking, drugs, partying, and sex, ended up being so much more. Family, sexuality, social expectations, and depression were taken head on and masterfully crafted into a thoughtful and hilarious show, performed by a cast with pitch perfect timing and passion. Through all of it though, I found the family dynamic in the show to be so endearing.
The old family battles still being fought, deep dirt being dug up yet again. Oblivious fathers, stress-cleaning mothers, sibling rivalry, and underneath it all a lot of love. And to Brisbane locals it’s going to ring so many bells. Everything about it has a very familiar and comfortable feeling, from the set design to the mentions of local suburbs. If the conversations happening in this play weren’t happening in your house, they were probably happening in your neighbour’s. There have been times in my family when bringing up old beef has brought us to tears laughing, or it’s brought us to tears crying. That’s the territory Reagan Kelly trods. But it does it so masterfully that I suppose you could say that’s where it dances.
20-30th March, 2019
Metro Arts
Tom Kakanis