Having said that, I didn’t think it was all bad, although there were definately moments where Andrews the Director did not serve Andrews the Writer well (in the middle when various characters had to be shuffled on and offstage to have their scene with Chris, in particular, the pauses in between scenes were deadly). And the gratuitous “let’s sing something in german” moment was a mistake. I also thought Eloise Mignon stood out as particularly unvaried from her performance in “The Wild Duck” (although to be fair, she’s gone straight from the revival in Melbourne into this, so it may be a case of not shaking the character out properly).

Having said that, there were some triumphant moments. And particular bitching of the current Belvoir management for presenting a dud play seems to ignore the number of dud plays presented under the Neil Armfield reign (in particular I recall Beatrix Christian’s “The Governor’s Family” as being spectaularly poor, and Stephen Sewell’s “The Gates of Egypt” being no better). There is a certain sense of “let’s smack the new guys” going on here that isn’t entirely fair.

I don’t wanna say that I’m right and everyone’s wrong, but I definitely think that this play is/was a lot funnier than what the audience gave it. I was also struck by the different responses received on both occasions that I saw it. The line about Chekhov’s gun for example practically stopped the show the first time, while it barely got a smile the second time. But then, the second time the audience seemed to find the whole premise of Chris sleeping with everyone, and all the sex for that matter, to be a lot funnier. Judging from the polite applause at curtain call, compared to the longer,louder applause at both curtain calls at the preview though, it is likely that they were laughing at the play in general because they thought it was ridiculous and implausible.

I ALSO THINK that Olivia’s very odd masturbation scene at the end might have been something better laughed at. It is ridiculous. And I’m sure Benno knew that. He wrote it, and it looks ridiculous on the page. We’ve scene Andrews’s work before. His plays are almost always funny in one way or another (Even Figaro managed to make seemingly the most snobbish of Opera crowds laugh at some points). Could we be taking him a bit too seriously this time?

Another possibility, is that the play tapped perfectly into my sense of humour, and no one else’s. But I’m cool with that.

But then again I don’t think he failed, or at least not anywhere near as spectacularly as most everybody else (apart from Jack – we should start a “wasn’t the best play I’ve seen but still I liked it” club). You and I saw it on the same night, Augusta, so we don’t have to worry about possible changes in the script when talking about it. (I remember Elissa Blake on Twitter saying that Belvoir called her, when there were rumours going around of scenes being cut post-opening, to tell her that nothing had been changed. Plus, cutting seems to be no problem to me pre-opening, anyway – isn’t that what Stone does rather regularly (didn’t Thyestes have an hour taken off it in the last week?)?)

But I feel myself rambling. The point I wanted to make is, at the moment, I’m assuming, somewhere near the beginning, precisely when you no doubt were feeling disconnected, I made a physical effort to involve myself in the play. I literally leant forward, elbow on knee, chin on hand, and ‘engaged’. And I get the feeling this may have made all the difference. (I know, for instance, if I had been seeing a similar play that didn’t have any names (such as Mr. Andrews) that I admired attached to the production, I most likely would not have been so generous with my engagement.)

I didn’t really see the play so much about success as it was about channeled neediness – each character, threatened, reaches out to their protector. (And I knew there must have been some funny business going on, so that stopped me from rejecting the play straight away like I assume most of the audience did, as I waited patiently for the explanation.)

I think it’s pretty clear that Mr. Andrews utterly misjudged what the reaction of most of the audience would be, and how much patience they would have, but then again, he’s not an uber-experienced writer. (And perhaps Belvoir didn’t make him change much – though if he’s been cutting himself pre-opening then surely he doesn’t find his own text sacred – because surely if any director in Australia could make the most out of a defective-text at the moment, it is Mr. Andrews.)

Personally, I’m interested to wonder what the response to this play would have been if it was staged in the intellectual Holy Land that is European Theatre that I read so much about – would the audience, for instance, have laughed at the ‘serious’ bits? (Not that I’m accusing anyone here of mis-responding (if that’s even possible), but I’m curious to know if a different setting might have provoked an entirely different response.)

(My review, by the way, if anyone is interested, where I assume (though I can’t entirely remember what I wrote) I was somewhat more eloquent than I am here: http://www.theatrepeople.com.au/reviews/every-breath)