Kate Walder and Penny Greenhalgh’s Bad begins with an announcement promising Geoffrey Rush and Cate Blanchett in a performance of Where’s My Bucket, Mum?.
The audience are eventually told that Rush couldn’t make it, but Blanchett would in fact be here. What results is a low-concept hour which mostly involves somebody with an intentionally poor French accent trying to convince the audience (and her accomplice) that she is in fact Cate Blanchett, all the while trying to teach her accomplice how to act.
The costuming, which features elaborate caps and clown noses, comes off as a deflection. They let the audience know that they’re wearing silly outfits, and that the audience should lower expectations accordingly.
The two characters share an endearing, Rain Man-style relationship, with Blanchett (Walder) trying to convince people that she is who she says she and Rush’s stand-in (Greenhalgh) generating jokes that communicated her general awkwardness. The performers lean on Sound FX cues as their main source of plot development, the bare set acting as a backdrop for a parade of randomness in the place of substance. With some nice visual gags the effort wasn’t a complete shambles, it was just disappointingly close: a well intentioned effort that felt eerily close to watching rehearsals for a HSC performance.
Old Fitz Theatre to 14 Jan
