Powder Room

The first joke is the title.  ‘Powder Room’ is a dated euphemism for women’s toilets, the place women went to powder their pretty little noses.  What we see as we enter the MC Showroom, is four not too clean lavatories in four graffiti covered, doorless stalls.  There’s loo paper and other debris on the floor.  (Design by Madison Stephens, Ash Donovan & Adam Smith.)  Various cast members will opine during the show that the women’s loos in bars and nightclubs are generally disgusting.  So, what better setting could there be for confessions, tears, spats, humiliations, reconciliations and discoveries? 

There’s Xan (Luce Wirthensohn), a no-frills gay, who’s fallen for glam Scarlett (Ez Kenworthy) across a crowded room and now, terrified of rejection, is hiding out and rehearsing an ice-breaker line even while wondering, ‘Is she gay?’  But Xan is distracted by a very drunk and tearful heartbroken Tiff (Amelia Nemet) who’s just seen the love of her life kissing some other girl. 

Meanwhile, Scarlett herself, the unknowing object of Xan’s desires, is in another cubicle, frantically trying to reach her friend Molly, who hasn’t shown up.  Instead, Piper (Dezi Boyle), a naïf, shows up. 

Piper is the first (and only) character who needs a pee – a curiously coy omission from a show set in a loo. 

Piper breaks the fourth wall to explain nightclub toilet practice and etiquette to the audience before somehow joining Scarlett and sniffing a lot of coke.  Then there’s Jamie (Amelia Dunn) in the middle; she’s been trying to throw up all night, but while trying, she buys into the Xan-Tiff discussion.  She is nowhere near as tactful as Xan… even when she realises that she’s the girl who was snogging Tiff’s boyfriend.  Whoops.

The action moves back and forth between the characters’ interactions aided by Sandro Falce’s lighting with alternating blackouts.  Surprisingly – if this is a busy night spot – no one else comes in – until a climactic moment later when Josh (Xepheren Jaadwa), Tiff’s erstwhile lover, is dragged in there by Scarlett…

There are also some ring-ins not listed in the program but apparently known to some in the audience, who do a promo routine about a new design of urinal, the point of which seems to be men can’t aim straight.  Most of the audience are bemused and just wait for this ill-judged joke to be over.

Tuia Suter and Bella Moretto’s intentions are perfectly clear as is their choice of target audience: twenty-something women.  Indeed, on the second last night of this show’s short run, the full house was eighty percent twenty-something women – and from the laughs, sighs and rueful groans, they recognised the characters and the experiences on stage.  So, there is a real ring of truth to all this.

That said, unfortunately Powder Room rather falls into the ‘situation not a story’ category – even over sixty minutes.  There are well-observed and truthful performances, but there is not a lot of character development or revelation.  The Xan-Tiff thing repetitiously marks time, but it is Jamie who takes revenge and brings things to a head.  Piper’s initiation into coke feels a bit too familiar.  The humour is a bit university revue but without the harsh bite of satire. 

Nevertheless, Suter and Moretto must be congratulated: they have crowd-funded and enlisted help from all over, and pulled this together and it hits their target audience with pinpoint accuracy.  Their next show will be even better.

Michael Brindley