A rantish review on the Red Stitch production of Fat Boy
Fatboy is an adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, an absurdist play that sparked serious riots, both in the audience and across Paris, following its debut in 1896. It would be deeply satisfying to report to you that the rather subdued audience in attendance at Red Stitch Theatre also revolted in disgust and anger at what they witnessed. They didn’t. Two people walked out and I imagine others felt uncomfortable. Given what it’s predecessor most famously achieved, it makes me wonder if Fatboy can evoke a similar passionate response.
In comparing it with Ubu Roi a review in The Age labeled Fatboy a failure:
“The main problem facing something like Fatboy lies outside the theatre. To a generation raised on South Park, Clancy’s play will be all too familiar. Director Marcelle Schmitz fails to keep the production as transgressive as it should be, precisely because she ignores the degree to which Jarry’s legacy has been absorbed into the Gen Y aesthetic.”
Given that I have grown up with South Park and regularly labeled “Gen Y”, let me endeavor to explain how my experience was all together different from the critical offering of Woodhead.
I thought it was a near perfect piece to introduce and reengage with live theatre. How was this achieved? The unquestionably live nature of the performance was reinforced constantly by actors directly addressing and making eye contact with the audience, or moments of self-conscious awareness in which the actors asked the audience for permission to leave the stage because they require a quick costume change for the next scene, or painstakingly long and purposely unnecessary set changes. It felt like anarchy ruled and the proscenium arch could come tumbling down at any moment.
The Red Stitch space was transformed into an old vaudeville theatre, complete with lush red curtain and fake proscenium arch, opening to reveal a two-dimensional cartoon set. It looked like a living, breathing, grotesque Punch and Judy show. Each actor appeared in stylised white face make up and simple costume to represent the basic status of their character: Fatboy in a fat suit, the Judge with a simple wig. The design reinforced one basic premise: nothing about this performance is pretending to be real or should be taken as a presentation of reality.
Fatboy was written at the height of the Bush era and is a play about lies, political distortions and corporate greed. To introduce the basics of the story: the king, Fatboy, is hungry. He has consumed, killed and enslaved everyone and everything. He stands trial for war crimes alongside his monstrous wife Queen Fudgie, and despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, the court refuses to convict him. In spite of all of this, I loved the fat bastard. Why? Because he is hilariously entertaining: he sings, dances, tells dirty jokes, performs live puppets shows and swears like few theatre characters have ever sworn. Throughout the performance I found myself cheering loudly for him and overlooking his many evil deeds.
In 1896 Jarry’s intention was to challenge the hypocrisy of bourgeois culture. He loved profanities and believed “that the dramatist should use whatever vocabulary he thought appropriate” (LaBelle, 1980). Clancy as a writer also has a clear love of language. His scripted dialogue is crucial in establishing this strange world of monsters, injustice and insults. It’s both obscene and poetic.
Theodore Roosevelt once argued that ‘weasel words’ were one of the great defects of America and “when one ‘weasel’ word is used…. after another there is nothing left.” Fatboy himself almost always uses weasel words, mixed with plenty of profanities. In one instance, Fatboy stands trial for War Crimes and masterfully convinces the court he shouldn’t be convicted using extreme ‘weasel words.’ The Judge replies by making an impassioned speech about basic human rights and then after a long pause, the entire cast roll about the stage in laughter. The audience laughs too, wildly and loudly.
There was a group of secondary students in attendance at my performance, thanks to the inclusion of the play on the VCE list. Unlike the audiences that rioted after the 1896 production of Ubu Roi, these local secondary school students seldom experience theatre which provokes and challenges them to riot or experience anything at all. After the performance it struck me that this was a wonderful introduction to live theatre for them. Fatboy was absurd and compelling, borrowing the best bits of Beckett, Brecht and Monty Python (With plenty of jokes about sex and farting and slapstick).
In the closing monologue all five actors remove their costumes and makeup. They are no longer characters in the play, rather themselves, the acting ensemble of the Red Stitch company. The actor playing Fatboy walked into the audience and directly addressed each of us, saying that we are all ‘arseholes’. He reminded us of our own role during the action of the play and we each became increasingly uncomfortable and aware of the smug part we have played throughout the proceeding performance.
The core argument of Fatboy is not one special or particular to just Americans. If America is Fatboy, Australia is rightfully his wife Queen Fudgie: a sex crazed lunatic who profits from his killings and has a somewhat bizarre love-hate relationship with her ultimate provider.
The audience at Red Stitch may not be rioting; frankly we don’t riot much anymore. But in the final monologue I stopped laughing for just a brief second and saw Fatboy and his excessive gluttony. I don’t think a thirty minute cartoon on television or another inane facebook status update could remotely achieve this outcome.
