From the moment you sit down, there is an unsettling feeling of what is to come. The stage sits between two sets of audience seating, so you’re watching the performance and the reactions from the opposing audience. Once the visceral dialogue begins, you quickly realise the blisteringly white stage is actually a war zone; a boxing ring; a colosseum. As the name suggests, the Perth Theatre Company’s Tender Napalm is brutal and unforgiving. It offers a look into the extremes of raw human emotion and our capacity for destruction. What follows is the relationship of a man and a woman, sliding in and out of shared deliriums and a tragic reality.
The performance itself is confronting; the pair are taunting each other from the edges of the stage with their forked language or violently wrestling, springing around like a pair of aggressive apes. The humour in Tender Napalm is sadistically funny – whether they are outlining the horrendous acts they intend to commit to each other or the wild fantasies that they conjure up, the script is gold. Just one example comes as the female character describes the drunken state of her male compatriot and speaks of how his tongue is the texture of a shag pile rug – so furry in fact, she could ‘perm it’.
But the overarching tale is one of loss – of an unnatural loss in their lives. To say the show is a rollercoaster is an understatement – Tender Napalm is fiercely stirring and maliciously funny.
Benn Dorrington
***
