Season cancelled, but boy girl wall still a resounding success

Take a stick of chalk, an over-head projector, an empty stage with an extremely talented actor and you have the strange and hilarious story boy girl wall.

The imaginative Lucas Stibbard performs this one-man show about a wall who thinks two apartment neighbours are meant to be together.

Thankfully however, the story involves a little more than just inanimate objects playing match-maker, with Stibbard portraying the lives of Thom and Alethea and everyone else around them.

Stibbard excels in his first solo show, and with the creative team of The Escapists delivered a hilariously different piece of theatre. Using no more than chalk and some clever lighting, boy girl wall highlights that set simplicity and talent alone can provide a solid 75 minutes of entertainment.

There is a crazed murderous magpie, cringe-worthy bosses, talking Tuesdays and a whole lot more of interesting quirks that make up this production. Stibbard’s story-telling is animated and descriptive as he acts out the many outlandish scenarios that is boy girl wall. This includes his explanation of Alethea and the evil Montague road magpie with a killing agenda. Stibbard created props as he needed them; door handles and alarm clocks were necessities that could be formed in seconds with his stick of chalk.

The Escapists describe in the program that the show is “more about the little things” and a creative piece that has “a minimalist approach to the design and the performance as a whole”. The Escapists wanted to see how little they could use to create something magical. An experiment of new ideas and creative processes, it included Matthew Ryan and Stibbard taking turns writing drafts of the script and the play succeeded in delivering the magic they aimed to achieve.

The glory however belongs to Stibbard for his dynamic performances of a children’s author with writers block, an IT employee who has no idea what he actually does, 7 days of the week, the floor, the ceiling, a lonely sock puppet and plenty more eccentric characters. With a flick of his fringe he transformed from the quiet author Alethea to a gothic library worker who turned a children’s story book into a frightening thriller. His animated facial expressions, range of voices and body language showcased his flexibility, altering his persona in a split second to play a wide range of characters in each scene.

boy girl wall is something different with a whole lot of imagination and talent, by a team of brave artists creating new boundaries of theatre and succeeding brilliantly.

Unfortunately due to an unforeseen medical emergency affecting performer Lucas Stibbard, the season of boy girl wall has been cancelled.

However Metro Arts is currently working with The Escapists about the potential of a return season of the show in the not-too-distant future.