Posted by kluster on June 27, 2011
I feel kind of ripped off that Who’s The Best at the Sydney Theatre Company was my first Post experience. I’m mean, seriously, this trio have been (allegedly) creating some of the funniest performance pieces to come out of this city for almost a decade now and Monday’s opening night show was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on them? It’s like discovering beer on a hot Saturday afternoon, at the age of 25, and then being told you could have been drinking it for seven years.
Who’s The Best is a hilarious tale of competition via deconstruction, consisting of the enacting of a measuring of all parts of the sum. Or, an equation written to decipher which of the trio that form Post - Mish Grigor, Zoe Coombs Marr, Natalie Rose (all played by themselves, except Natalie who is played by Eden Falk (Sleeping Beauty) - is, as the name implies, the best. In short, the members want to figure out which one of them is superior in almost all ways and have invited us along for the ride.
The performance is the result of a week-long residency/workshop at Sydney Theatre Company’s Rough Draft last February, during which the trio workshopped improvisations into script. Fast forward a year to the resulting work has not only aged gracefully, it appears to have matured. There are staging and acting flaws (intentional?), cast members on all fours and one of the most entertaining extended – painfully so – dance sequences we’ve seen executed on this stage. Who’s The Best is awkward, stilted weird and brilliant. Watching someone make themselves cry has never been this funny. Well, not that I’m aware of anyway.
Who's The Best is playing at Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company until July 2nd 2011.
sydney theatre company, post, who's the best, mish grigor, zoe coombs marr, natalie rose, eden falk