By Colin Flaherty
Wolf Tokyo Club are a struggling band trying to get through a rehearsal. As much as Anton wants to get through a single take of his new love song, the others would rather be talking about or doing something else. Ahh…the joys of working with bunch of dysfunctional people on a project!
For a show about a band the music certainly took a backseat to the story. All seemed competent on their instruments but as soon as a groove started, things would hilariously fall apart which was fine as we got to learn more about this group of loveable misfits and see the comical sparks fly.
On paper, 45 minutes of some guys bickering with each other may seem like it would get tiresome quickly, but the wonderful script certainly prevented this. Not only were there plenty of clever and amusing distractions to keep derailing the rehearsal but some interesting sub-plots were introduced to keep the animosity bubbling away throughout. We got to chuckle at some inane conversations that musicians probably have to endure as well as marvel at a unique method of identifying notes. The various methods of procrastination led to many amusing lines to keep the laughs rolling along.
It was interesting to see how they managed to shoehorn the usual character traits that are normally associated with a comedic trio into this four person (with a small fifth role by Shane Matheson) performance. Your Alpha male guitarist Anton (Seamus McAlary) played the role of straight-man perfectly while cool guy drummer Fudgy (Eric Hutton) was a constant source of hilarious disruption. The dim character was split between the seemingly stupid bassist Matty (Rodney Todd) and the extremely slow-witted keyboard player Ethan (Todd Allen) which worked brilliantly. You got some smarts beneath the surface of Matty (in between going off on many a hilarious tangent) to make him a threat to Anton leaving Ethan, in his permanently stoned stupor, to be totally clueless.
I’m still trying to get my head around the conclusion to this play. Following what would be the final punchline of the story they immediately launched into a post-script that was quite surreal. It certainly tied up the main sub plot neatly but it was quite a shock after the relative normalcy that had preceded it. Perhaps this wacky curveball was influenced by Matheson? Despite leaving the venue slightly confused, it was a satisfying and hilarious play performed by some of Sydney’s great underground comedic talent.
Wolf Tokyo Club At Rehearsal is on at the Tuxedo Cat until April 7
For Bookings & information go to the MICF website:
http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2015/season/shows/at-rehearsal-wolf-tokyo-club
