La Boite’s season opener is bracing stuff for new parents

Watching this show about new parenthood was at times cathartic, but then it all goes horribly wrong and it’s terrifying, writes Phil Brown.

La Boite - Naked & Screaming

For some reason when things started to go wrong in Naked & Screaming I started to think about the film Rosemary’s Baby. The baby in that film was demonic, you may recall, (it gives me the creeps even mentioning it) and though the baby in this season opener by La Boite is never seen it does seem to be just a tad cursed.

Playwright Mark Rogers, who was there for the world premiere of this rather compelling two hander, writes from personal experience. That is he and his partner had a baby. We think that’s where the similarities between his life and the play end though. He pointed out that the work isn’t autobiographical. Thank the lord for that!

But I guess the stresses of new parenthood did make him think about how it could all go wrong. As it does in this play.

That’s not really a spoiler. I mean it is called Naked & Screaming so it’s understood that histrionics are on the cards.

Emily Burton and Jackson McGovern on the verge in La Boite’s Naked & Screaming

Emily Burton and Jackson McGovern are Emily and Simon, new parents who may not be quite ready for parenthood. I mean, who is?

They grapple with it and their cluelessness is cute at first and there are plenty of laughs involved as they interact with their invisible baby.

Obviously it was untenable to use a real baby and a dummy baby would have been silly.

Lots of people in the audience, including me, were nodding with recognition as they grappled with their little bundle of joy.

But then things take a turn for the worse when Simon goes overseas for work leaving his stressed partner at home with baby Dylan.

There is an incident while he is away that changes everything. From there on in things go from bad to worse and while there isn’t any nakedness (besides the nakedness of raw emotion) there is certainly plenty of screaming.

What the hell? Jackson McGovern trying to figure out what went wrong in Naked & Screaming

It’s kind of cathartic to watch people going through this although it’s also sad because you see so many stories on the nightly news about parenting going tragically wrong.

Rogers has written an insightful and clever piece that might still need a bit of work and may be five minutes too long which is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. It’s compelling stuff and it’s great that as a local theatre company La Boite is starting its year with a new Australian play and that we get to see it first. Emily Burton and Jackson McGovern are terrific under pressure because in a spare two hander like this there is nowhere to hide.

It’s confronting stuff but satisfying and a great night out at the theatre. This is the sort of fare La Boite is renowned for and we hope they keep on doing it.

Naked & Screaming, until February 28, Roundhouse Theatre at La Boite, Kelvin Grove; laboite.com.au