Champions

It’s a tough test if you want to win the $50,000 Archer Award. First you’ve got to be one of the four chosen active participants, then you’ve got to be declared the winner after a further 6 months working in adjoining rooms. But the prize is big enough to draw many in, and the four presented by writer Isabella McDermott are each determined to be champion. After briefly toying with the idea of sharing the prize, they decide to fight it out - and may the best man/woman win.

This play about what it takes to survive in the modern art world started life in New Zealand, and director Bali Padda tracked it down there. No doubt the writer is surprised to see her excellent work on display in this unique Sydney space.

Each of the competing artists reveals his/her self in separate monologues, which take them onwards through the course of the play. This can be a tricky manoeuvre: never do you see a character in anything but his/her own light, but the writer goes at it full-tilt.

There is excellent acting from the group, who all see this contest as a cornerstone to their future careers. The two women (Cat Dominguez and Talitha Parker) know each other from university: the men (Bayley Prendergast and Lincoln Vickery) maintain their separateness. 

There’s a small, real Picasso painting in the shared bathroom, owned by the rich benefactor of the scheme, which gets the group chatting. The benefactor, it emerges, has creeping hands...

Elle Fitzgerald is the Set Designer, who must wrangle her way to sharing the basic setting with a later group, but she comes out very nicely. There is some brilliant lighting by Tim Hope and truly fine sounds from composer Prema Yin.

Director Padda emerges from this fine first play in excellent health.

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Patrick Philips