to the Playwave website or you SHALL BE REMOVED!REVIEW: The Pigeons
The Pigeons
Presented by The Other Theatre and KXT
Reviewed by Eloise Aiken
“I must make chaos”
It’s 2008, you hate your job, your wife’s screwing your psychiatrist, your boss is lining you up for a promotion that you’re desperate to avoid, and your coworkers do their very best to make your life a living hell. This is Holger Voss’s (Andrew Lindqvist) worst nightmare — and also his life.
Oh, and Merry Christmas by the way.
David Gieselmann’s The Pigeons, presented by The Other Theatre in association with KXT bAKEHOUSE Theatre, is 75 minutes of farcical chaos. It’s fast paced, ridiculous and perfectly captures the bureaucratic purgatory of office life riddled with infidelity, bullying and embezzlement.
The show relies on chaos, and director Eugene Lynch does an excellent job of creating a constant state of mayhem that somehow flows seamlessly onstage, whilst still feeling entirely out of control for the audience. It is no small feat to block a stage with ten actors who remain in view for the entirety of the show — bar a few moments of disappearance into filing cabinets. Lynch masterfully manipulates our attention, leading us to often miss moments where characters reappear suddenly wearing three more belts or collars or metres of tie than before.
Lochie Odgers’ set screams corporate hell with a perfect wash of electric blue, starkly contrasted with a complimentary garish green. As the play progresses, the walls begin to close in on the employees, entrapping them further and further into their own microcosm, unable to escape themselves. It’s suffocating to watch.
If you were worried about Lynch’s background in opera going to waste on a play, worry no further. After the disappearance of Robert Bertrand (Mark Langham), Dominic Lui, a pants-less priest, performs a beautiful operatic rendition of Lady Gaga’s Just Dance, as the characters use dance to reckon with the unfortunate event. But sound designer Christine Pan does not stop there, the show also boasts a passionate take on Lily Allen’s titular Fuck You, that Natalie Voss (Lib Campbell) sings passionately to her loser husband, Holger.
Special mentions must go to Jackson Hurwood for his performance as Helmar Bertrand, a perfectly punchable son and “power mad baby face”, as well as Kandice Joy as Heidrun/Libgart Reichert, whose physicality as the office bully was both captivating and terrifying. However, this show is brilliantly cast, every single actor bounced off each other and the energy was truly electric on stage.
The show is outrageous and an absolute rort. Take your friends, get yourself a wine, and strap in for The Pigeons — on until December 21st.
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The Pigeons is showing at KXT on Broadway until 21 December 2024. Tickets can be purchased here.
Images by Justin Cueno
