The Reluctant Shopper
Written and directed by Bruce Hoogendoorn
The Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre Wed-Sat, June 19 -29 at 8pm. Sat June 22, 29 at 2pm.
Bookings 02 6275 2700
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With The Reluctant Shopper, local playwright Bruce Hoogendoorn has come up with a breezy little comedy that almost manages to make economics fun. Barry (Rob de Fries) is sent out by The Business Council's bossy boss Katrina (Elaine Noon) to wheedle reclusive but rich Sam (Brendan Kelly) into a one-man shopping spree to help businesses recover from a drop in consumer confidence.
Trouble is that Sam is frugal to the point of Scrooge-ishness and isn't at all keen on spending his inherited wealth. A bit of blackmail, the threat of the tax office and the appearance of the glamorous Lisa, who has no objection to shopping at all, and Sam, who has fallen for Lisa, suddenly becomes very happy to help.
It's all over in about 70 minutes but the beauty of the piece is that it does not muck about in a heavy-handed way. The premise is set up quickly and carried along particularly well by de Fries's likeable manipulator Barry. Only the blackouts, a bit of an obsession with naturalistic detail and a few too many props threaten to slow it all down. Wayne Shepherd's surreal set - of huge sale notices augmented by Kelly McGannon's sometimes surreal lighting - points the way.
However, the briskness of the script and the energy of the cast drive it along amusingly. Lisa is a convincing shopping tragic, Kelly as Sam makes the transition from recluse to spender very believable and Noon makes a deft difference between her roles, from unscrupulous Katrina to the bothered owner of a failing gift shop.
There's a touch of Marlowe's Dr Faustus here, with Barry as an increasingly reluctant Mephistopheles to Sam's increasingly tempted Faustus. But this is a modern tale, and hell is not gaping to swallow anyone up, although the tax office might be. The ironies of consumerism are sketched in and Barry certainly finds ethics in conflict with maintaining an income that will support family and mortgage.
How all this resolves is in tune with the play's cheerfully cynical view of human behaviour. The Reluctant Shopper shows a strong capacity to follow ideas to a conclusion that leaves the audience thinking but smiling.