An all-nude play is a clever idea – and not because it guarantees you coverage and foyer conversation, though it does both. And not because butts and bits are easy comedy – though they can be, and in Naturism they often are. But a nude cast does something far more important: it gets the audience onside, and quickly. Watching humans be nude under spotlights in front of a crowd feels vulnerable, and as an audience member it instantly engenders a sense of empathy. I’m squishy too! My textiled body commends your courage, naked actor!
Director Declan Greene knows how to work this. His production of Ang Collins’ play is quick to charm and disarm, with an opening sequence that winks at the play’s gimmick: a montage of images in which individual characters tease a nude reveal by strategically covering key bits with fruit and flowers. Two minutes in, and the mood in the theatre is raucous and appreciative. Applause and laughter. We’re in this together.
The setting is a remote rainforest; our naked protagonists are a trio of gen X (not to be confused with boomers, please) naturists (not to be confused with nudists, ahem) who have been living in some kind of secluded off-grid micro-commune for two decades, cut off from the rest of the world.
There’s self-styled guru Ray (Glenn Hazeldine), sporting aviator sunnies and a matching tan line and toting a large leather-bound compendium of assorted wisdom and dicta called “the Thingy”; Helen (Hannah Waterman), an “artiste”, craft enthusiast, self-styled “empath” and avid birdwatcher with a natural curiosity that not even Ray’s rules can quench; and her partner Sid (Nicholas Brown), a worker-bee who loves a rule and a task and will let you know about it.
Into this self-sustaining enclave bursts Evangeline (Camila Ponte Alvarez), a gen Z eco-influencer with a massive following on TikTok, who has been tipped over the edge of sanity by a particularly persuasive video on the environmental impact of air conditioners, and is running away from her Melbourne life with its melange of climate anxiety, information overload and existential angst.
Evangeline says she’s determined to assimilate, but inevitably her presence destabilises the delicate ecosystem – and kindles Helen’s latent dissatisfaction with commune life. As this unspools, a bushfire encroaches and Ray’s shady past bubbles to the surface. And there’s a surprise late arrival to the party (Fraser Morrison), who pushes proceedings into full-blown chaos mode.
It’s a good mix of narrative threads that should result in comedy, dramatic tension and heart – and ideally, say something of substance about the climate crisis.
But playwright Ang Collins (Blueberry Play) gets distracted riffing on the generational divide, and doesn’t quite nail a sense of high stakes or momentum. In the show’s brisk 80-minute ride, there’s lots of chat and not much action in the front half, then everything seems to happen at once – but before we’ve found a reason to really care about the characters it’s happening to.
The exception is Helen – the play’s most interesting character and plot thread, who is brought to tender, ridiculous, messy life by Waterman. The play could do with more Helen and fewer jokes about how gen Z are addicted to their phones, have no attention span and can’t read books.
The script and the show’s best bits are the moments that surprise you – lines and delivery that catch you off guard, Helen’s bonkers craft hats (courtesy of designer James Browne), and surreal song and dance sequences courtesy of a spectacular magic-mushroom-fuelled trip that Helen takes in the latter half.
Generally, Naturism is a smart and handsome production, entertainingly performed. Hazeldine, Brown and Waterman, in particular, have the comic chops to persuasively land some of the weaker lines.
But for a play inspired by climate anxiety and the catastrophic Australian bushfires of 2019-2020, Naturism has surprisingly little to offer on this front. Except perhaps the gentle suggestion, hinted at in Helen’s storyline, that however urgent other parts of our survival might seem, art is vital. And the sense, as we sit together laughing in the theatre, that comedy and community are too.
Naturism runs at Wharf 2 theatre, Sydney Theatre Company until 15 November
