A dry, pale-yellow cactus sits to the side of the stage with a wooden chair in the middle, an oppressive, orange light blazing over everything. Yet this sparsity in setting manages to pull the audience in, the aridity, the heat, the emptiness of the world achieved immediately. Go West is a play, produced by the theatre collective Aimsir and set to feature at the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Previewing this past weekend at the Samuel Beckett theatre, it is a play about “legacy, collapse and living at the end of something”. It’s a “post-apocalyptic world [where] the apocalypse hasn’t come yet” and yet it’s brought to life. The apocalypse rears its terrible head through its wonderfully moustachioed, two-man cast of Amy Scollard (Bang) and Jessie Byrne (Boom), who both hold onto dreams of the past and future. The duo is a delight as they play out the variety of dynamics that their relationship takes on in the play, mixing both comedy and deeper commentary with ease.
The play consists of three parts with the link between them left seemingly ambiguous. They could be chronological or snapshots of separate scenes featuring the same characters in isolated situations. It opens with Boom running on stage, sputtering about having seen a man down in the town. A town deserted for years. Bang, a cynical, “here boy” toting old man, cane and everything, accuses Boom of lying but Boom fights back out of spite. Suddenly the man is a veterinarian, has a fancy red car and even wants Boom to be his assistant. Bang guffaws at this last statement, saying “if your brains were dynamite, you wouldn’t have enough to blow your own nose!”. A lot of the claims made by Bang and Boom during the play have no root in reality, as they apparently change from line to line. Yet they cling to them tightly, each man wanting to bolster his sense of being the one who’s right. Bang boasts about getting the train to school for free because the conductor took a liking to him and Boom reminisces about playing fetch with the dog by the river: A dog he suggests Bang ate. Nevermind the illustriously named “Hunter J Warden” who goes from the owner of a valuable notebook they found to a dear friend.
The final scene was to me the best of the three, it got the most laughs and sounded out the final note of the play’s themes by finally bringing them to the surface for confrontation. Bang is now a salesman desperate to sell a house to Boom. He emphasises that a man has got to own something while Boom believes all he needs in life are his memories and experiences. Each scene ends with the lights lowering behind the audience, a sunset shining directly into the eyes of our lonely pair. “Eyes to the horizon boy,” Bang tells Boom the first time, staring straight forward. All the while a plucky guitar tune plays, mournful yet hopeful. It places you there with them so that you too are watching the final hours of day in the Wild West. By the time the third sunset comes round Bang can barely turn his head towards the light and Boom simply looks on, his eyes bleary but somewhat vacant. A look that felt all too real.
The play then rounds out the only way it possibly could, with a rodeo followed by a Mexican stand off. Afterwards, Bang and Boom turn heel and buck themselves off stage.
As someone who would not see plays as regularly as I would like to admit, I still highly recommend the rustic cavalier nature of Go West. Despite the play’s experimental style, it is by no means inaccessible. The characters of Bang and Boom manage to ride Go West’s absurdity right on home and create a surprisingly meaningful experience.
