Dopey drug comedy is high on its own shock value

The Stoned Ape
Bondi Pavilion Theatre
April 4, until April 13
Reviewed by CASSIE TONGUE
★★
Henry (Barrett Griffin) is a law-school dropout turned eager new dealer; he waxes rhapsodic about Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson and wants to try the “entire alphabet of drugs” with his girlfriend, Summer (Veronica Cloherty).

Meanwhile, Counsellor Cunningham (Susan Jordan) is guiding Mrs Maxwell (Sally Williams) through her legal options as she prepares to divorce her husband. And, in some shadowy location, nurse Tash (Jess King) has kidnapped Aldo (Dean Tuttle) for her mysterious bosses.

The Stoned Ape is too busy trying to be shocking to dig deepCredit:

In The Stoned Ape, Ian Leete’s brash play about crime, corruption, and chemicals, these disparate scenes are eventually revealed to be connected. But then, on opening night, everything felt eventual. The play’s 90-minute running time ballooned to two hours without interval, which, coupled with indulgent script bloat and laboured jokes about the zeitgeist that end up empty (“tapping away like a feminist blogger at a #metoo convention”), this is a play that had audiences restless, audibly groaning at bad punchlines and plot twists, and even leaving the theatre in groups.

The cast is trying its best, leaning into broad comedy when characters named “Bikie” (Johnny Boxer) and “Junkie” (Harley) arrive to try to sell the cliched plot beats about drug busts and shakedowns, or switching to melodramatics when consequences finally catch up with the ensemble.

Both of these approaches, however, land awkwardly. The Stoned Ape is too busy trying to be audacious, shocking, or clever to dig deep and encourage its audience meet that depth as they engage with the work. Its characters are two-dimensional: either stereotypes, catalysts (Counsellor Cunningham), or objects (Tash is absurdly sexualised), which keeps us at arms-length.

Black comedy is notoriously difficult to pull off, and director Ruth Fingret has clearly prioritised clarity of plot, even if it sacrifices intention or tonal cohesion, a safe choice with a script that needs work and a production on a shoestring budget.

For this genre to work well, it requires a strong emotional or ideological core to ground, direct, and weaponise all that humour towards its intended target, and The Stoned Ape, for all it purports to uncover the trauma of divorce, unjust family law, and drug-related crime, doesn’t dig deep enough to make its point.

What remains is a play full of leering braggadocio and bluster. It could coax a laugh out of
you. It could also have you gritting your teeth until the end.

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