Content warnings: coarse language and sexual references. Recommended for ages 15+.
La Boite closes 2023 with the world premiere of Lewis Treston’s fan-tastic romantic comedy IRL, the third and final work in their season of world premieres by Australian playwrights.
Directed by Sanja Simić, who has worked with Treston on IRL since its inception, the play was commissioned by La Boite in 2020 and has been in an ongoing state of development since then. Set over the course of one very eventful day in Brisbane it stars a cast of only three actors, all making their La Boite Theatre debuts with this production.
Alexei (Will Bartolo) is a seventeen-year-old cosplay enthusiast (cosplay = costume + roleplay, if you’re unfamiliar with the concept), and he’s about to meet his internet crush for the first time IRL (in real life). Alexei and ‘T’ (Byron Lankester Howells) have been corresponding for eight months via Tumblr, but they’ve never met. Alexei doesn’t know what T looks like – or what his real name is – so he is understandably nervous as he waits for his online date outside the Supanova Comic Con in a full Princess Aurora costume.
Alexei’s best friend Taylor (Rachel Nutchey) will also be there – discovered during their Grade Nine production of As You Like It, she’s been filming in Los Angeles and is one of the Supa-Stars making an appearance at the convention. But fame and fortune have their own pressures and challenges, and Taylor is losing her grip on reality as internet strangers weigh in on whether she is the right fit for a new superhero series.
Following a wardrobe mishap, Alexei and T (whose real name is Thaddeus) meet in the bathroom. In a moment of insecurity and self-sabotage, Alexei hides his true identity and he and Thaddeus sneak in to Supanova together to find Thaddeus’ friend…who is also Alexei. Meanwhile, Taylor has descended into the Great Barrier Reef of her own subconscious, and the anti-capitalist vigilante she has been cast to play in a new Netflix series is possessing her body and wreaking havoc at the convention.
Audiences who saw Treston’s 2022 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband will find the same escalating antics and camp comedy and melodrama in IRL. While today’s seventeen-year-olds are Generation Z, Treston’s humour and pop culture references sit comfortably within the millennial milieu.
IRL is light-hearted and comical, but treats identity and its entanglement with the internet with due seriousness and sensitivity. The play has some interesting things to say about the highly individual challenges and timelines of coming out, and the increase in coerced outings of young actors in the media due to fan or producer pressure. It also reminds us that a handful of corporations own the rights to all of our nostalgic childhood favourites and the narratives that form the foundation of our popular culture.
Through the vehicle of cosplay, IRL explores the ways in which we disguise ourselves and our passions for fear of rejection or ridicule. Treston’s writing articulates emoji use and online communication well, and playfully breaks the fourth wall as well as dipping into surrealism.
Will Bartolo was an endearing and melodramatic protagonist as Alexei, with excellent comedic timing, and all three actors played a carousel of exaggerated characters throughout the ninety-minute show.
Staged in La Boite’s Roundhouse Theatre, IRL utilised a revolving set with multiple doorways, designed by Anthony Spinaze and realised by M’ck McKeague. Spinaze also designed the many (many!) costumes, which included shiny superhero unitards, a Pikachu onesie, and layers of pink tulle for Alexei’s princess gown. Lighting design by Ben Hughes and sound design & composition by Wil Hughes further heightened the sense of altered reality in the play, from dream sequences and rom-com movie moments to video game physics.
Simić’s direction made full use of the stage and its multiple entry and exit points, including a lengthy slapstick chase scene. Fight, intimacy, and movement direction by Nigel Poulton (and “fish choreography” by Sammie Williams) also contributed to the highly physical staging.
Packed with costumes, chaos, and pop culture, IRL is a sweet story of young love, a madcap buddy comedy, and a celebration of fandom and obsession of all kinds, rolled into one. It captures the raw intensity and all-consuming emotion of a teenage crush, as well as the uncertainty and affirmation of making friends (and building relationships) in the online world, blurring the lines between persona and personality to ask who we are behind our masks and costumes.
IRL will be performed at the Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove, from 6 – 25 November 2023
For ticketing and further information, visit the La Boite website
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