THE GUARDIAN Palmerston North FROLICS OF FAILURE FULL ON FUNNY!

FROLICS OF FAILURE FULL ON FUNNY!

A Night with Beau Tyler
By Peter Feeney & Greg Cooper
Directed by Greg Cooper

Globe Theatre, June 3

The Guardian, Palmerston North
Reviewed by Rob Mildon

Richard Nixon. David Richwhite. Stain. Rarely does noe get to follow in the footsteps of 20th Century luminaries like these, but here we stand in the presence of their mentor. Beau Tyler has burst onto the Globe stage, raising us all to our feet to being actualising our potential, as part of his revolutionary Failure Access Revitalisation Technique. Before long, he has us performing eye-straining Power Purges, releasing our negative energy all over those next to us.

It’s not often that theatre has such full-on audience participation, but it works, overcoming our embarrassment to play off our need to not let the side down. Actor Peter Feeney rises to the challenge of energising an audience on his own, brimming with vigour as he strides about the stage, befriending individual people and telling us all about his personal journey.

A lot of one-person shows have many characters to draw on, but Feeney has just one, and has to invest Beau with many different levels. It’s a task he handles admirably: the character ranges from bellowing enthusiasm to child-like self pity. The over-the-top nature of the performance fits the theatre setting well.

There’s a Powerpoint presentation taking place during the “seminar”, and this adds a lot of the comedy by mixing the sublime with the mundane, the possible with the blatantly implausible. It allows us to take in jokes at our own pace, ones that are image-based or simply too wordy to speak.

Where the show works best is in the subtle things, such as Feeny’s well-executed improvisation, and in the big juxtapositions. Funny by their very ridiculousness.
The energy from this show should be capable of powering a small city for a month!