Lachlan Philpott’s 2009 Griffin Award winning play Silent Disco is currently on stage at Griffin until June 4. Presenting an insightful perspective of Australia’s youth with its absent parents, desires to become more than what’s around them, to be loved and not to be just another school drop-out with a baby at the age of sixteen. Its thematic concerns are sobering and highly affective but Philpott’s carefully constructed words, perfectly pitched characters and occasional comedic timings and reliefs, lighten the sobering load of what is the dance danced in Silent Disco.
The protagonists, Tamara (played by Sophie Hensser) and Jasyn (or better known as Squid, played by Meyne Wyatt) are in love, fighting a battle between individuality, education and peer pressure fought by so many before, and indeed so many to follow after them. With Tamara’s internal commentaries, we see the world through her eyes; a famined world of depravity, denial, and loneliness, a clear transformation from seeing ‘just another rat bag kid’.
All performances are strong, but Hensser and Wyatt make stunning co-stars. Hensser is no stranger to acting, having done work on Home & Away and in various independent theatre productions, but Silent Disco is undoubtedly her successful debut to the mainstream stage. Wyatt, an Indigenous Australian 2010 NIDA graduate, portrays Jasyn, and previously on Griffin’s stage, Oshooshi in The Brothers Size, both brilliant performances, portraying the heart-break in his character’s hardships.
Squid, who is ultimately a sweet, kind natured boy who just wants to take his girlfriend of eight weeks (and four days, three hours…but who’s counting? Oh yeah, Tamara is…) to the formal, but doesn’t have the money, and whose brother Dane is in prison for dealing. Meanwhile Tamara is fuelling her passion and talent for writing, whilst simultaneously just being another teenage girl and making all the mistakes along the way. But at least there's the formal to look forward to...
A truly telling scene from Philpott's play is when the school teacher listens to a confiscated iPod, and is instantly seduced, stating that "it's like some drug that keeps things out, insulates me from the drone of it all and I feel incredible, invincible.'' Now everyone, she says, is moving to her beat.
In the spirit of such a breakthrough of talent, the desire for freedom and the adolescent passion for loud music, dancing and being cocooned in one’s own silent disco, come join the party this Wednesday, May 17, at Goodgod Small Club to dance in a real-life silent disco. That’s right. Real life, kids. So come be part of the party, dance to your own beat, and be part of the larger swell of what is our love affair with Silent Disco.
Silent Disco - The play (playing until June 4)
Silent. Disco. Shut up. Dance - The party (Wed May 18 8pm til late, Goodgod Small Club, Liverpool St)