A man named Thom walks on to a stage dressed in suit, tie and sneakers and begins to explain that what you are about to see is not a love story. He then proceeds to tell a love story: his.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
He's a lonely IT worker at a big company separated by an apartment wall from Alethea, a writer struggling with her second book, who might bring happiness to his life (and he to hers). The wall has decided they belong together and enlists the help of the apartment's ceiling, floor, doors and power box to bring this about.
Clearly, the Escapists' production Boy Girl Wall, which opened last night at The Street Theatre, is no ordinary love story.
Co-writer Lucas Stibbard plays Thom and all the other characters, using a blackboard, a stick of chalk, a slide projector and a sock puppet as well as his own talents.
''It's 25 characters in 75 minutes,'' says Stibbard, who wrote the play with Matt Ryan. Their inspirations ranged from other ''wall'' love stories such as the musical The Fantasticks and its source Les Romanesques to Romeo and Juliet but also works such as Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood and Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Stibbard, whose credits include Bell Shakespeare's Richard III and The Alchemist for the Queensland Theatre Company, has been married for nearly five years to the play's musical director, Neridah Waters.
Having missed out on touring an earlier Escapists show, Attack of the Attacking Attackers! because of its large cast and heavy equipment, the company decided to take the opposite tack this time with a show that had a touring company of just three and little in the way of props and scenery.
And it's been a success since it began in Brisbane in 2009, winning a Matilda Award and travelling to Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, audiences warming to a show created under the Escapists' manifesto of ''theatricality, imagination and the joy of play''. Stibbard says in Boy Girl Wall he tries to engage the audience and he's acutely attuned to audience reactions which can help keep the play fresh.
''Once after a joke someone said, 'What?!' and I used the blackboard to explain it.''
Boy Girl Wall is on at The Street Theatre, Childers Street, Civic, from today to Saturday and August 29 to September 1 at 8pm. Tickets $35 full, $32 concession, $25 student. Bookings: 6247 1223 or thestreet.org.au
