They’re filming the pilot of the TV sitcom Vickie & Vinnie and we’re the studio audience.
I pray the show never gets the green light to be developed into a full series; it’s truly awful. And that’s one of the comic delights of Amy Lawler’s play – it delivers a terrific parody of a genre that too often deals in cliché and untruth.
In the pilot, the titular and platonic housemates are surprised by a visit from Vickie’s mum. (No-one living on the planet on which television was invented over 70 years ago would be surprised by that plotline.) Incomprehensibly, Vickie’s mum is outraged that her adult daughter is sharing a house with a man. Even more incomprehensibly, to placate her, the housemates pretend to be engaged. If you were pitching the idea to a producer, you might say it features a group of creatures who look human but who share with that species only the qualities of deceit and mean-spiritedness. These creatures spend a lot of time insulting each other – and this is the interesting bit – they do it while sitting on a couch.
Yes, television like this gets made.
And people watch it.
(It’s probably best not to think too much about what that says about human nature.)
But Lawler digs deeper by presenting the world in which such rubbish is created. Alexis has been cast as Vickie. It’s her first big chance in the industry – but it’s not going to be easy: the director is abusive; the first AD is obsessed with an unrealistic schedule; her co-star is unsympathetic and impatient; and the actor playing her mother, a TV legend, is a total diva. Like all good satire, it feels like there’s only a sprinkle of hyperbole.
The conceit that we are the studio audience, and that we’re expected to respond to cue lights demanding Laughter and Applause is great fun, and effectively encapsulates the superficiality of sitcoms. (The conceit, however, does come with a cost: the piece is forced into a similitude of real time; location becomes frozen into a type of static realism; and, when there are conversations that would presumably be private, our presence as studio audience is conveniently forgotten.)
Directed by Lawler, performances are wonderfully comic. Theo Rule as the TV director is gloriously shallow and inconsiderate. Linda Nicholls-Gidley as the diva is tremendous fun; imperious and hilariously self-important. Nicholas Richard as the first AD does awkward with elegant acumen. Nikita Khromykh as the actor playing Vinnie slips smoothly between the uptight smart alec of his TV character and the cynical professional whose talents are being wasted – while simultaneously offering sufficient hints that he might just be human after all. Milli Higgins as the gopher delivers some magical physical comedy. Claudia Elbourne as Alexis beautifully balances the humour of the parody and satire with a naturalism of genuine confusion and hurt that gives the piece its emotional punch.
The program suggests Alexis is neurodiverse. I wouldn’t have picked this up from the production; the character simply appears to be what used to be called a sane, good person – she just happens to be stuck in an utterly barking mad environment. Semantically, the term neurodiverse implies the existence of a common or typical experience. (Does the term imply there’s a normal? No, but I’ll get back to that weaselly little word.) Clearly, there are individuals who experience life differently than many others do, and often their experience is more challenging. And, if the writer director and some of the creative team of this piece say they’re sharing their experience then that can only be a good thing, one that shines light on some otherwise neglected aspects of what it is to be alive. However, the program note suggesting the play represents the experience of a neurodiverse individual still has me wondering if it’s one last cheeky piece of satire – not aimed at those who are neurodiverse, or even aimed at the term itself, but rather at the TV industry, where barbaric behaviour might be so common, that some might say it’s just normal, and if you can’t cope with it, then you’re the one with the problem.
Which is, of course, a most insidious way of silencing criticism.
Vickie & Vinnie by Amy Lawler
at 107 Projects until 21 Sept
as part of the Sydney Fringe
sydneyfringe.com/events/vickie-vinnie/
Image by Holly-Mae Steen Price
Theatre Red 