Melbourne Theatre Company's True Minds, by Joanna Murray-Smith. Picture Jeff Busby Source: Supplied
Melbourne Theatre Company's True Minds, by Joanna Murray-Smith. Picture Jeff Busby Source: Supplied
MEETING the prospective in-laws, introducing the beloved to one's parents, and struggling with the ex-boyfriend is the stuff of many a romantic comedy.
True Minds, the new play from Joanna Murray-Smith, mines the comic possibilities of it all.
The hapless Daisy (Nikki Shiels) - successful writer of a book about men not marrying women their mother's don't approve - scrambles to impress Vivienne (Louise Siversen), the Right-wing mother of Daisy's lawyer fiance Benedict (Matthew McFarlane).
Daisy's mother Tracey (Genevieve Morris) is an old-fashioned, hippy feminist. Her father Maxim (Alex Menglet) is a celebrated, philandering, Left-wing political animal. And her former boyfriend, Mitch (Adam Murphy) is just out of rehab.
Daisy is hurled into the bear pit when they all arrive at her home at once.
Murray-Smith's text satirises all the characters, making them more caricatures than fully rounded personalities. It's a double-edged sword for this production as it provides laughs, but leaves the characters and story two-dimensional.
She pokes fun at the foibles of the Left, the Right, the rich, the radicals, the social climber, the media personality, the opinionated, the substance abuser. You name it, she smacks them.
There are some witty social observations and good laughs at the expense of everyone, but the story and the drama seem to get lost in the flurry of arguments that often turn into shouting matches or drunken rants.
In the latter half of the play, a couple of sentimental speeches about love cannot compete with the reference to Shakespeare's famous love sonnet, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment''.
Director Peter Houghton keeps the pace and energy up with plenty of physical and visual gags scattered among the dense, but often overly wordy, comic dialogue.
The cast is clever and funny, hurling themselves into the roles. Strangely, the play really takes off after 60 minutes when Benedict, the absent fiance played hilariously like a prancing peacock by McFarlane, arrives and becomes a pivot for the dramatic action.
So, which man does Daisy choose for a husband? The bad-boy recovering addict, the former boyfriend, or the clean-cut, conservative lawyer? Now, that would be telling.
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TRUE MINDS
Melbourne Theatre Company
Southbank Theatre, until June 8
Rating: ★★★½
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