It’s pretty early on in Ash Flanders’ newest play, This Is Living, when we learn that the title is a reference to a prime-time travel show; a tagline that soon becomes the play’s unofficial calling card. Characters scream it at strangers and mock each other with it. As the play goes on the phrase becomes a hollow brand name and an existential lament in one. Add a question mark and it’s incredulous, nihilistic; add an exclamation point and it is victorious, life-affirming. This is Living swings between both polarities as it explores the messy intricacies of care. But for all the emotional and conceptual depth of its content, the show and many of the relationships at its heart feel surprisingly under-baked.
Five long-time friends descend on a bougie country estate in Victoria’s Hepburn Springs for New Year's Eve. Struggling couple Hugh (Marcus McKenzie) and Will (Wil King) are the first to arrive, already in the midst of another passive-aggressive fight. Things are tense between the pair since Hugh’s cancer diagnosis a year ago, and he spends most of the first act finding more eggshells for Will to walk on – creating fights out of misplaced chip packets, open sliding doors and a FOR SALE sign that blocks the view from the master bedroom.
Before long Alex (Belinda McClory) and Jo (Maria Theodorakis) arrive to cut the tension in a sea of Gormon totes and Burberry silk scarves; a bawdy pair of fifty-something one-time theatremakers who now moonlight as a TV presenter and academic, respectively. They’re joined by recently divorced mum Sharleen (Michelle Perera) soon after. It’s not long before thirty years of shared history and harboured resentments come out in increasingly fiery arguments between the trio.
This is Living represents a surprising turn toward naturalism for the usually subversive Flanders: a two-hour, five-act show based on his personal experience caring for his partner after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2020. It’s an autobiographical show about a particularly insular world; a homage to Flander’s partner and his female friends, and a testament to the precarity of the Arts industry that resembles Noel Coward (or, more recently, Belvoir St Theatre’s Blessed Union) for its interest in upper middle-class life as well as the caustic wit and tightly wound dialogue that Flanders uses to represent it.
Its witticisms are razor sharp and Matthew Lutton directs each scene with a restraint that pulls his actors back from the temptation to overdramatise them. Act One drops us into a chosen family suffused with rich shared histories and language. But the play doesn’t know what to do with them from there, and these relationships fail to develop from their initially promising introduction.
By Act Two, Hugh and Will are stuck re-treading similar emotional beats. They’re grappling with interesting questions about the emotional and physical toll that comes with caring for a loved one (what does ‘real care’ look like, Flanders queries in the program notes). But their relationship is too underdeveloped to support these dense questions. We receive one anecdote about how they met, but are never afforded a glimpse of the connection that they are fighting to preserve. King is a forceful actor but they struggle to vary the back-to-back screaming matches and near-melodramatic breakdowns so often required of them. McKenzie revels in every biting one-liner, but his performance lacks depth and Hugh quickly stagnates as a character.
Thankfully, the three women remain electric to watch. McClory shines as the narcissistic Alex, and her moments of vulnerability are among the show’s most emotionally affecting. Perera is an audience favourite. A wonderfully physical actor with a masterful sense of comedic timing, she mines each line for humour while adding charismatic passion to every anger-fuelled monologue. Jo would be a thankless role in the hands of any other actor, but Theodorakis strikes a dynamic balance between passivity and strength that develops wonderfully over the course of the play.
Paul Jackson’s lighting design is sparse and minimalistic, with buttery soft transitions a warm addition to the regional summer setting. Matilda Woodroofe’s set design is impressive in scale, but sit to the left and you’ll have to lean forward to see the patio upstage; sit on the right and you’ll miss Hugh and Will’s master bedroom. In many ways, the design resembles a sound stage for the taping of a television show more than anything. While this would be an interesting idea, there’s not enough sign-posting in the script for it to come across as anything other than frustratingly untheatrical as a result.
As it comes to its conclusion, This is Living struggles to tie up its many loose ends. Alex makes the turn away from a new television opportunity to "do something meaningful", offering a resolution to a problem we were not aware she had. And after three days spent being sanctimoniously lambasted for ‘cheating’ on Hugh by kissing another man – oddly moralistic for a queer relationship – Will inexplicably decides to return to him. But the rushed conclusion is simply not enough to resolve the pair’s glaring incompatibility.
At its best, This is Living feels electric with lived-in truth. But in the end, this theatrical slice of life – and death – pulls back from exploring more complex answers to the questions it asks about ‘real care’. The final note of hope struck by its ending is a tough pill to swallow, and we’re left with too many unsatisfying answers for it to feel earned.
'This Is Living' is showing at the Malthouse Theatre until July 30. For more information and to book tickets, head to the website.