Demagogue | Adelaide Fringe 2022 review

This frantic political drama maintains Safari Street Creative’s reputation for producing outstanding original theatre work.

Demagogue actors Spencer Scholz and Samantha Riley from Safari Street Creative.

Demagogue

Theatre and Physical Theatre

Rating: *****

The Studio at Holden Street Theatres

Until February 27

Twist upon twist and turn upon turn keep the surprises, tension and laughter coming in this rapid-fire new play which is ostensibly about one thing, but eventually reveals an entirely different elephant in the room.

Written and performed by Spencer Scholz alongside his Safari Street Creative co-founder Samantha Riley, it maintains the relatively new company’s reputation for producing outstanding original work.

The more things change, the more they stay the same – and this savvy and sassy two-hander asserts that nowhere is this more true than in politics.

As the audience enters, the two actors are seated on opposite sides of a coffee table in what is clearly an office waiting room, heads buried in their phones.

They then begin to exchange a barrage of barbs and razor-sharp verbal assaults which peel back the complex layers of their relationship like an onion.

We often talk about politicians who change policy as doing a backflip – when in fact such an acrobatic manoeuvre leaves a person facing in exactly the same direction.

Escalating events cause this duo to constantly reinvent their self-serving narratives, while their core agendas remain unaltered.

The abrupt, shock ending was followed by applause which continued long after the actors had departed the stage.