Welcome to Mob’s world
0 The Swell Mob’s strolling cast have a ball depicting the cast of gothic grotesque characters
these eldritch creatures. As the evening wears on, you may – more likely, will – be approached by a ne’er-dowell, engaged in conversation, offered a tip or charged with a task and then dispatched to do their bidding, often involving the exchange of special Swell Mob pounds,
issued on entry in a drawstring bag.
Suffice to say, the more you invest in their world, the more you will get out of it.
So intriguing and intoxicating is The Swell Mob’s brew that audience members are easily hooked into the hurly burly and the mood in the
room escalates in pitch and intensity until the entire cast are whipped up into an amorphous maelstrom of movement before being sucked through one of the portals to who knows what realm from which they were spewed. FIONA SHEPHERD
Until 26 August. Today 7:45pm.
Kate Berlant’s fascinating, frequently hilarious act, plays with an audience like a cat with yarn. From her opening blurt of pseudomeaningful nonsense, she is her own unique monster, a spoof of the self-obsessed performer but too much fun to be dismissed as merely meta-theatrical.
Affecting a stream of consciousness, she improvises off audience responses with expressive physicality, unpredictability and controlled mania.
Her confidently asserted claim to be psychic is a masterstroke. Despite her fishing obscurely and missing repeatedly in her efforts to establish connections, in a manner of speaking, she already has.
Such is the goodwill her performance creates that the audience wills her to succeed, taking responsibility for keeping the dialogue going to see where she can take it. So much more than a gimmick, it plays hard to Berlant’s strengths.
Such crowd control is impressive. And there’s unquestionably some very funny pre-written material maintaining a sense of progress. But it’s a big ask for it not to ultimately become a little formulaic, with another strong suit required to make this the smash Berlant is likely capable of.
JAY RICHARDSON
Until 26 August. Today 9:15pm.