BOOZE CITY (WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY MALCOLM HILL) - Review by Joe Calleri.

What – BOOZE CITY (WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY MALCOLM HILL)

Where and When – THE BUTTERFLY CLUB (5 Carson Place, Melbourne, off Little Collins Street), July 11-14 and July 18-21, 2013, at 7pm.

Reviewer - Joe Calleri.
Stars - One Star.

Each night it seems, our news bulletins are drenched with ever-more graphic stories regarding ever-increasing incidences, and financial and societal impacts of, alcohol-fuelled violence. If the consequences of such violence were not often so deadly and far-reaching, they would risk becoming a cliché.

So, when I read the promotional blurb for writer and director Malcolm Hill’s satirical play, Booze City, which purports to highlight “Australia's thorough addiction to alcohol and its consequences in a thought provoking & funny political satire”, I thought it would be worth reviewing.

Sadly for me, and the other three audience members at last night’s opening, Booze City is not thought-provoking, not funny, and certainly not satirical.

Instead, it’s a ham-fisted, head-scratchingly embarrassing, cliché-riddled, farcical mess that was supposed to run for an hour, but ran to a turgid, patience-draining, 73 minutes.

Summarising the play’s narrative is a difficult exercise, not because it’s complex, but, because – and please forgive the reference – it lurches about like a drunken sailor on a shore-leave bender.

Barking mad ex-drug squad copper, and now best-selling author, and owner of Jack’s Bar, Jack Korvat (an over-acting Richard Keenan, channelling Chopper Read channelling wrestler, Killer Kawolski), is planning to open his open all hours mega-bar, a three storey shrine to booze, babes and mixed martial arts in, I assume, Melbourne’s CBD.  

Korvat’s having problems obtaining his liquor licence, as unsurprisingly, he’s deemed by the authorities to be an unfit person to run a bar.

Enter the current Minister, but ex-Premier, and ex-alcoholic, Tim Balcome (Greg Waterston), who seems well acquainted with Korvat, and who can help Korvat with his legal stalemate.

But, when the now sober Balcome needs persuading, the conniving Korvat unleashes his secret weapon – the contorting, seductive, part-time stripper, part-time Arts and Women’s Studies scholar, and feminist, Misty (Jeni Bezuidenhout).

Balcome becomes the moth to Misty’s flame, and as quick as you can say “put this on my tab, bar-tender”, Balcome falls off his three-year sobriety wagon and sexually assaults Misty. All while being recorded on CCTV. Leverage is what Korvat wanted over Balcome. Misty was merely the bait.

Meanwhile, Balcome’s son, the garishly attired, dim-witted, Chifley (Ezel Doruk), who is studying fashion design, is on a “Mad Monday” drunken binge after finishing his exams.

Chifley (who extols the virtues of bar-hopping, and views clubs as a “wonderland”) not only drunkenly crash lands into Jack’s Bar where he meets Misty, but also the press-conference where his Father is giving his acceptance speech after being re-elected Premier.

Balcome’s ex-wife, the strait-laced, grabby, power-suited, Adele (Melina Wylie), conveniently surfaces after Balcome’s re-appointment as Premier. Rather than express any concerns regarding her son’s disgraceful display of public-drunkenness, or her ex-husband’s growing attraction to the bottle, she focuses on the décor in her ex-husband’s office.

Speaking of offices, the Premier’s office appears to be as easy to access as your local Coles store. Misty arrives with a threat to release the CCTV footage of the Premier’s drunken attack to the news networks unless the Premier agrees to shut down Korvat’s activities. The Premier responds to this threat as all good politicians do – by setting up a Committee to examine the connection between alcohol and violence in the CBD.

Amazingly, the Committee finds no such link.

Still more amazingly, the Premier declares a freeze on the opening of new drinking venues.

Korvat is pissed off! Something must be done.

And the play stumbles on, and on, and on … to its silly, contrived, conclusion that has Chifley bashed while bar-hopping; the Premier standing down after his drunken indiscretion with Misty is revealed, but still remaining a Minister; Korvat kidnapping and hog-tying, Adele; Korvat (dressed as Bacchus, complete with grapes on his head and a toga) finally opening his den of iniquity with the aid of the Minister, and the newly-converted (by the persuasive stripper/student/feminist, Misty) feminist, Adele, being installed as Premier. Oh, brother!

Booze City, replete with a confusing, ill-conceived, and poorly drafted script, slack, amateurish direction, over-acting, and fluffed lines, fails in every conceivable way to explore, illuminate or even toy with, the very serious questions that surround the issues of alcohol addiction and associated violence.

Hill has with this feeble effort, merely managed to trivialise those critical issues, while at the same time insulting his audience’s intelligence and testing their patience.