The Punter’s Siren

Gina Schien’s short but pithy little play is a crowd pleaser. It’s suggestive, provocative and very funny. Director Stephen Carnell brings his 2012 production back to the stage for Mardi Gras, with his original cast. Together they do the play proud.

Jacqui Robson is hilariously racy as Helen, first-time punter who, stood up by her friend at Randwick Race course, is tapped on the shoulder by a blonde bombshell, (played by Laura Viskovich) who is very friendly … yes, that friendly! And she’s stunning and fashionable! Helen can’t believe her luck and falls for her in a big way.

Robson sets the riotous pace and pitch of the play from that moment and sustains it through loud, gulping disbelief in the blonde’s attention, to a breath-defying, side-splittingly funny commentary on the race on which she’s bet an enormous amount, to a similar hysterical commentary as she races herself, with the money she’s won, away from the pursuing blonde and her beefy boyfriend.

Despite the pace she sets, Robson misses none of the innuendo, implication or undertone that Schien has cleverly twisted into her very economic script. She is provocative and titillating one moment, gauche and just a bit gawky the next. Both Schien and Carnell must be delighted with her re-incarnation of the character.

Viskovich provides a perfect foil for Robson’s almost frenzy. She is poised, arrogant, condescending, tightly controlled in the face of Robson’s awkward fascination – and sneeringly malicious about the money.

The Blue Moon is almost too intimate a space for ‘big’ performances such as those required by the character of Helen, but Robson defies that intimacy and makes the audience her receptive, understanding friend – despite the fact that the seats are hard and uncomfortable, some of the sightlines problematic and apparently some areas of the stage hard to light. Still for just under an hour it’s bearable – and certainly worth the opportunity of seeing this little gem of a play and its talented first lady.

Carol Wimmer

Images: Phyllis Photography