I’m not going to lie to you; the Players Coop show was a surreal, but lovely experience. Not the usual way to begin a review, I’ll grant you that, dear reader. However, if you had likewise experienced Combat Baby: The Juliano Incident you would agree that “surreal but lovely” was strangely fitting. I took my seat in the Players Theatre to the strains of ‘All That Jazz’ being played by the house band while, on stage, the cast was resplendent in Roman togas. The juxtaposition of the jazz standard with young Trinity students in togas, suggested more than a hint of hedonism and I couldn’t help feeling that a giant orgy was about to erupt at any second. Well, I for one wasn’t complaining.
DU Players is a great society. Founded in 1932, it is now in its 77th session. They put on forty productions a year (that’s roughly two a week if you’re doing that math) as well as holding many special events such as the Fresher’s Festival, the Players Ball, Stars in Their Eyes, New Writers Week and the 24 Hour Musical. Last year, they also collaborated with Comedy Soc to give the college community the first ever Trinity Fringe Festival, a successful collaboration they are renewing once again this year. Even a casual observer like myself can see that Players members are hard-working, dedicated and (probably most importantly) talented. With forty productions a year, and a full theatre to run on a daily basis with production, costume and props departments, a dedicated membership is really the only way the society could keep going from year to year. The Fresher’s Co-op seems to be a crucial cog in the running of this operation. Open to Freshers as well as those who have no previous involvement with the society, the scheme takes the uninitiated and moulds them into both players and ‘Players.’
The Co-op performance plays an important part in this process, acting almost as a debutante ‘coming out’ ceremony for future Players regulars. This year’s show certainly didn’t balk from the formula. At 2 hours and forty minutes long, Combat Baby attempted to give a line or a bit part to every member of the cast. The numerous sketches and songs set in wildly differing historical eras and worldwide locations gave opportunities for showing off comedic talent, unfortunately at the expense of dramatic cohesion. Even having seen the play, I’m finding it difficult to explain the plot (although this extreme whimsicality might be ‘the point’). According to the promotional event info, “The quest focuses on the search for the legendary gauntlet of the god Combat Baby. Our heroes search through war -torn Europe for this relic which could bring an end to the terrible war. With the help of many different characters along the way, we hope that our brave men (and women) will succeed in recovering the gauntlet and defeating evil.”
I consider myself a smart girl but I didn’t get grasp this quest against evil at all – I absorbed clever set pieces and moments of brilliance but an overall “plot” eluded me. “Good has finally triumphed over evil”, we are told. Really? I can’t even tell anymore to be honest. However this is not to take away from the inherent enjoyment of the play: after a while I stopped trying to follow the plot and just let the whole experience wash over me. Scenes that deserve a mention include a pitch perfect iceberg-making factory and a scene depicting a group of hyperactive nuns who lived by the gospel according to Beyonce (“if you liked it than you should have put a ring on it!”) Songs included “Everything’s ok in Ancient Rome” and the brilliant burlesque parody, “Somebody please just sleep with me” and there were some brilliant one-liners to remember: “Blacksmiths don’t battle. We don’t have the metal!” My favourite scene, however, and one that will stay with me for a long time: after the heroes of the piece (inexplicably) wash up on a tropical island populated entirely by mermaids we are treated to a hilarious take on their imaginary Sex and the City lifestyle. Sipping cocktails and dissecting the office flirtation with the “guy from accounting” one of the mermaids dishes the dirt on their proposed night of passion, “so we were just getting down to business, when he suddenly realised…” everyone chimes in with “you don’t have a vagina!”
Unfortunately, the experience was soured (if only slightly) by the audience on the night, a very small number of whom felt it necessary to shout out to the players on stage, turning their input into a running commentary that, I think it’s fair to say, not many audience members appreciated. I am sorry to say that this was not the first Players performance which has, for me, been tainted by overzealous audience members who seem a bit like kids at a panto, over-stimulated on sugar. Ultimately, it’s to the credit of the performers on stage that they were well able to deal with any (even well-intentioned) heckling quite professionally.
Written and directed by Manus Halligan, Sam McMullen, Matthew Smyth and Norah Ward, the play was an irreverent, illogical, ahistorical romp that was punctuated by moments of brilliance. It could have done with being significantly shorter, but if it’s an excuse to show off Fresher talent I suppose nobodies complaining.
