The X Collective opened their 2024 season with a devastating duet of shattering psyches in Tonight with Donny Stixx and Dark Vanilla Jungle. Wayne McPhee directed these back-to-back Philip Ridley plays, each focused on the experiences and delusions of a traumatised young person and delivered as a deeply engaging monologue.
Philip Ridley is an English storyteller working across many mediums, including playwrighting. The X Collective has previously produced Ridley’s full-length play Leaves of Glass and that performance stayed with me for months – you can read my review of it here. Tonight with Donny Stixx (2015) was originally written as a companion piece to Dark Vanilla Jungle (2013), sometimes performed together and sometimes in rep on alternating nights. This production marked the Brisbane premiere of both plays, and the first time they were performed together in Australia.
Tonight with Donny Stixx was performed first, starring Ronan Mason as teenage magician Donny. After the suicide of his mother, Donny goes to live with his aunt and finds meaning and confidence in the performance of his magic act for increasingly large audiences of family and neighbours. He acquires an assistant and harbours great ambitions of fame and recognition, but Donny’s dreams turn to dust when an outside perspective dents his self-image, and he seeks another way to become immortalised.
Mason played Donny as both pitiable and entirely self-assured, alternating between gentlemanly showmanship and flashes of unchecked anger, with an undercurrent of quiet vulnerability that came to the fore in the final, painfully tender scene. The climax of the story was exceptional in both construction and performance, and is one of the strongest moments that remained with me after the show.
Mason also achieved a range of distinctive voices for the other characters that appear in Donny’s monologue, even at a fast pace, and a subtlety of expression and body language that would be lost in a larger venue but were compelling in close proximity.
Following an interval, the evening continued with Dark Vanilla Jungle, starring Whitney Duff as Andrea, a young woman who is groomed by a gang and subjected to ongoing sexual abuse under the guise of love. After the loss of her grandmother, the only stable influence in her life, Andrea seeks out a safe and happy family narrative to insert herself into, with a man who is fully within her control.
While Tonight with Donny Stixx escalated clearly from beginning to end, the writing of Dark Vanilla Jungle swerved suddenly in the middle, separating the story into two parts – Andrea as victim, and Andrea as perpetrator – and the final scenes seemed to be pulling at a mythological thread of imagery that didn’t quite unravel. This may be due to Dark Vanilla Jungle being written earlier, with Ridley refining the form in Tonight with Donny Stixx.
Duff played the role of Andrea with earnest naïveté and emotion, even as the characters’ experiences of abuse and hyper-misogyny were deepened, internalised, and perpetuated by Andrea herself. The dialogue and Duff’s performance suggested a sweetness and shyness towards the audience that escalated into a need for them to understand, and to see things from her perspective, in order to find redemption.
Tonight with Donny Stixx and Dark Vanilla Jungle were performed in the Holy Trinity Church Hall, and the actors managed the complicated acoustics well, although Mason’s dialogue occasionally became indistinct when he changed volume quickly. Large panels at the back of the stage area assisted with the acoustics in the large space and provided a backstage/offstage area for the actors.
Mason’s costuming removed layers and added meaningful accessories as Donny’s story progressed, whereas Duff changed costumes onstage, undressing and redressing while she spoke. Lighting design by Timothy James increased the plays’ further intensity, especially in the chilling climax of Tonight with Donny Stixx and the scene transitions of Dark Vanilla Jungle, coupled with the sound of a heartbeat.
Both monologues used the full performance space, including the aisle between the audience, and minimalist set design utilised an arrangement of cloth-covered boxes and raised platforms that the characters moved between. Dark Vanilla Jungle included much more stylised movement, from a one-sided fight that moved up and down the aisle to choreographed movement suggesting sex and childbirth.
In both plays, the actor addressed the audience directly to tell their story and answer unheard questions, although the audience’s role was unclear – press conference? support group? judge and jury? Similarly, the horrifying secret that each monologue moved toward uncovering was foreshadowed early in the way that the characters spoke to the audience, accusing them of heckling or calling out. Both monologues also incorporated some singing, and the actors adopted consistent English accents.
Ridley’s plays always dig into the darkest reaches of human nature and traumatic experiences, and the physical and emotional stamina of the actors in performing these monologues for over an hour each was commendable. With Tonight with Donny Stixx and Dark Vanilla Jungle, The X Collective adds to their legacy of powerful and gut-wrenching theatre that will stay with you long after the performance has ended.
Tonight with Donny Stixx and Dark Vanilla Jungle was performed at the Holy Trinity Church Hall, Fortitude Valley, from 11 – 26 April 2024
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