Like Young review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

 

Your twenties are supposed to be some of the most defining years of your life. You go to university, get jobs, move out, make new friends and start figuring out what you want from life. In Like Young, writer and director Adeodatus McCormack brings four young people together over 24 hours as they deal with circumstances that could potentially change the course of their lives. The problem is that very little of it proves particularly engaging or ground-breaking.

The biggest issue stems from the writing, in that much of the drama occurs off stage and separately from the other characters. Oliver’s (Michael Crisafulli) uncle has died, leaving him $500,000 in the will while the rest of his family receives nothing. This feels like an uncommon problem to have and a strange one to put a 20 year old to experience, when it could just focus on processing the grief of losing his uncle.

Bella (Sabrina Rault) is caught up in complications over her ex-boyfriend, Luke (who never appears on stage), while Paris (Max Nunes-Cesaar) is also coming to terms with the death of a relative. These are significant events for the characters, but so much happens away from the group, that their problems barely become personal between them. We learn about what they are dealing with, but we don't get to see those experiences meaningfully affect their relationships with each other. For a play about people navigating their changing lives, they spend surprisingly little time actually connecting.

When all four are together, the dialogue can feel awkward and the staging does not help, with the actors sometimes standing in a line waiting for their next cue. The show becomes more interesting in its one-on-one interactions, especially those between Holly (Bella Henry) and Oliver. There is an immediate connection between the two, and Like Young finds a sweet meet-cute for a pair of "weirdos". Henry and Crisafulli seem to come more alive in these scenes, giving us a glimpse of the warmth and chemistry the rest of the play is missing.

Paris is harder to understand. He is written as a narcissistic, egotistical and somewhat deluded character who decides he wants to become a film director, believing he can be cutting edge by filming real sex scenes in his movie. Yet he undergoes virtually no change over the hour long show, leaving me wondering why we have spent all this time with him. It also raises the question of why Oliver has remained friends with this person since middle school. Their dynamic leans more towards underdeveloped rather than deliberately complicated.

At one point, the group discuss David Lynch’s films and how he builds tension by making us expect something to happen, only to keep delaying it. It is an oddly appropriate comparison, because Like Young does something similar. It spends a lot of time suggesting that something meaningful is about to happen, but instead of delaying it, the play simply never gives us anything to happen.

There are some promising ideas here, particularly in the relationship between Holly and Oliver, but Like Young never develops them enough to make its characters or their changing lives compelling. 

SHOW DETAILS 

Venue: The Motley Wherehaus, 432 Queen St, Melbourne
Season: until 11 October | 5:50pm

Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets: $33.50 Full | $27 Conc | $25 Hump Day Wednesday
Bookings: Melbourne Fringe Festival

Images credit: Alexander Rodeghiero-Smith