Dirty People

Relevant, newly written, Sydney-based — if you want to see a piece of theatre that's accessible and engage with the contemporary audience in a way that Shakespeare (sorry Will) no longer can, Dirty People is your next outing. The stage is set as a hipster-esque bar and the first action motivated by a Tinder date. Charlie Falkner (writer and actor) plays James, the male who performs the bizarre 'mating dances' that modern meeting technology like Tinder have engendered. His gesticulations prove futile to win the bitingly self-assured female, Lucy, played by Charlotte Devenport. Ushering in the next 75 minutes with quick wit, humour, and post-smartphone social issues, the show makes a promise to be good. And by god it is.

A note on the actors because it is to their credit that the show is such fun. Falkner's acting is natural and authentic. He plays the millennial 'nice guy' with pizzazz. Devenport gives a great rendition of the third-wave feminist. Sam Delich plays the energetic, ocker barman to a tee. Zoe Jensen redefines the usefulness and insight of a ditzy diva as Tina and Sam Davenport, straight-backed and stiff, does justice to the "dick-idiot" conservative man with anger management issues. Director Michael Abercromby has taken Falkner's script, full of these colourful juxtapositions, and offered a complex investigation of how much everybody sucks. He asks the question, "Just how dirty are we all?" And the audience at least knows the answer to the people on stage.

Dirty People is an exemplification of what independent theatre and new writing can do. Check out Falkner's new work; it is a sincere pleasure.