Syd Fringe: Out Of Fear Review

There’s a prevailing wisdom that says men are in crisis, that women have out-competed them in almost every sphere of influence, on any field of endeavour that you can think of. It says too that masculinity is under threat as an outmoded, archaic concept, and men are by and large extraneous and now they don’t know what to do with themselves.

I found myself wondering if this was where writer Dominic Witkop started from when he began weaving his study of Travis, a man in crisis, and the central character in Out Of Fear.

The fact that Travis is not having a good time of it is a given. His decision to uproot his family from their comfortable complacent suburban lives, leave behind all of the stuff we’re told we need to accumulate to show the world how well we’re doing, and plonk them down in the vastness of the Australian outback has not gone as well as he imagined.

Witkop tackles the big themes: isolation, depression, dislocation, thwarted ambition, substance abuse, and examines the damage we do to ourselves and the people around us. Being challenged to peel back the layers and examine the drivers for the choices we made makes for confronting viewing. Things are never as simple as they seem, nor are we entirely the person we like to think ourselves. And, actions have outcomes. 

3.5 Stars.

Tap Gallery to 14 Sep
Part of Sydney Fringe Festival