Saturday 9 December 2023

FUNeral review

One inescapable fact in life is that death will always come for us in the end. No matter what we do, life can end at any moment. While that realisation can be quite bleak, Clare Taylor and Ruby Rawlings are here to make it less dire, with their comedy show FUNeral.

During the promotion of their show, the two performers capture the attention of Death itself and so Death decides to crash the party. With the odds against them, Taylor and Rawlings are determined to put Death in its place and break its 100% winning streak of successful life ends, as if this was a comedic version of Final Destination.

Taylor and Rawlings bounce off each other well and have excellent chemistry. They are confident storytellers, and even with the looseness of the show you can see the control they have. When they are funny, they bring out the laughs and when they are dramatic, they bring out the emotion. As it currently stand however, FUNeral feels like two incomplete opposing halves stuck together and the pair need to combine these in a more fluid process so that the absurd and the seriousness can co-exist.

FUNeral
also requires a clearer and more climatic finale. Audience members are emailed in advance to complete a survey and naming one thing that is precious about their life. It's sweet, endearing and interesting to read these responses, but they are displayed in the concluding minutes without a strong connection to what has previously occurred.

Taylor and Rawlings have definitely put the fun back in funeral and can easily have a room full of people laughing with their strange but comforting humour about a very delicate topic. Further script development and story structure is necessary to make FUNeral flow smoother and knock its audience dead.

SHOW DETAILS



Venue: The Motley Bauhaus, 118 Elgin St, Carlton

Season: until 9 Dec | 8:30pm
Duration: 45 minutes

Tickets: $35 Full | $25 Concession
Bookings: The Motley Bauhaus

No comments:

Post a Comment