Bare truths: Nicholas Brown, Glenn Hazeldine and Hannah Waterman. Photo: Brett Boardman.
A comedy about climate change? Played by actors, naked apart from crocs and handmade hats? Yes, you can ask why. Here’s the playwright, Ang Collins: ‘Long story short – the combination of [experiencing] a bushfire evacuation, a love of nude beaches and the desperate creative question: Is it possible to write a funny play about an overwhelmingly unfunny global issue? Naturism is my attempt to wrap my head around the state of the environment and my place within it.’ And so…
It’s an ambitious concept. Naturism starts on comic notes: In quick succession three of the main players – baby boomers Glenn Hazeldine as Ray, Nicholas Brown as Sid and Hannah Waterman as Helen, Sid’s wife – appear in tableaux, unclothed apart from an accessory or two.
Ray is the leader of this commune that has deserted the bright city lights and all forms of technology to live life simply and naturally somewhere in Victoria. Not for them constant interruptions from emails and the interweb, news alerts or doom scrolling. Or plumbing. Or electricity. Et cetera. They’ve been living this way for a couple of decades. Not long after we have been introduced to their back-to-Eden idyll, an interloper in the form of fully clothed twenty-something called Evangeline (Camila Ponte Alvarez) arrives.
‘An intruder!’ screams Helen, interrupted in her birdwatching, before almost immediately asking her what’s happening in the outside world? Any gossip? Anything?
Turns out that Evangaline is also an eco-warrior (with a substantial TikTok following) and keen to shed her clothes in order to expurgate her guilt for the terrible ‘eco crime’ she has committed. No spoilers, but it’s something to do with air conditioners.
Ray and Sid need a bit of convincing about Evangeline’s bona fides. And she will, of course, be the catalyst for doubts, if not change. There are some funny one-liners exposing the differences and foibles of Gen Z and baby boomers, and vice versa. As well as, of course, the brave bare-all exposés of this cast (directed by Declan Greene). But then things take a turn for the worse (superseding the tragedy that Evangeline’s phone has just expended its last one per cent of battery).
Not only is there the threat of a massive bushfire but yet another twenty-something (Fraser Morrison) arrives, an entrepreneur claiming the land the naturists have appropriated is his, and they will all have to leave.
The plot is messy and absurd (both adjectives the media release uses) but this doesn’t always translate into consistently funny, although it must be said that Hazeldine and Waterman are well known for their comic chops, and Ponte Alvarez is also spot on for comic timing. But after we’ve laughed at all the usual generational foibles – and become accustomed to the nudity – there’s a bit of a lull in the 85 minute show. It does pick up again – Helen, bored, resorts to bringing out the magic mushrooms – which certainly changes the pace. Helen is Collins’ most rounded character. Sid is committed to eco-warriorism and ‘likes a task’; Ray likes to command and resort to his massive book of rules, called ‘The Thingie’; only Helen, with her doubts and anxieties and need to be heard, gives us more of a personality and makes us empathise a little. Unlike Ray and Sid, she isn’t entirely content in this bush utopia.
One thing that is constant, and depicted well by the lighting, set and sound designers (James Browne, Verity Hampson and David Bergman) is the unstoppable, fast-approaching bush fire. And Chloe Dallimore, recently heard on the good old wireless talking about her role as Intimacy Director, certainly had a task on her hands. And the nudity? Yes, it’s funny to begin with, but then it becomes just a gimmick (although a brave one and good on the cast). Of course, you can read into it exposes of ourselves, our fragility in this great wild world. But Collins’ Naturism seems to be there for the laughs; it’s doubtful whether it will alter anyone’s view on climate change and how to ameliorate its effects on our planet.
This is a Griffin Theatre production, staged at Wharf 2, Hickson Road, until 15 November.
Tickets $40-$72
More: https://griffintheatre.com.au/whats
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on/naturism/
or (02) 9361 3817
