Remember when you had to listen to a cacophony of dial tones and screeches before logging on to MSN to update your status and chat with your friends? Remember when you thought you were just pretending to be a different person online for fun? Remember your ultra-cringe Myspace URL that had a lot of “x”s in it, and listing every single song on your profile that you liked in case your crush at school noticed?
Written by London-based writer and performer Tabby Lamb, Happy Meal lovingly recreates all of these feelings, and then some, in a tight 60-minute rom-com about teenagers Alec (Sam Crerar) and Bette (Tommi Bryson) who meet on a digital mountain in the online world of Club Penguin. We follow their friendship through various eras of social media platforms – to MSN, then Myspace, Neopets, Skype, Facebook, Reddit, et al. Online, Alec is “Al”, who never corrects Bette when she mistakes him for a boy. Bette’s online avatar is a “girly” one, who dresses her penguin in pink cat ears she bought with her thousands of coins. IRL, they look a little different, but that doesn’t stop them from becoming the best of friends online.
As the audience enters the theatre, we are greeted by the sight of Bette and Alec dressed as penguins, idling and grooving around the stage. Bette waves to members of the audience just like a little idle avatar would.
The unconventional set design by Ben Stones, paired with video, sound and lighting by Daniel Denton, Eliyana Evans and Kieron Johnson, features a pair of “screens” on the stage with cloud-shaped speech bubbles cut out of them that become chat rooms, video games, Skype calls and phone screens that light up with text messages exchanged between the central pair.
The design sets a delightful tone, along with the confetti (in the colours of the trans flag, naturally) littered across the stage, and brings a sweetness to the usual coldness of blue, beige, black and grey computers. Somewhat frustratingly, the projection art didn’t always match the speech, and sometimes bled onto other areas of the stage – but this was otherwise a clever device to recreate digital realms in the physical world of the theatre.
Crerar and Bryson perfectly play the part of earnest and kind teenagers, even when their characters’ behaviour is problematic; and Lamb’s writing never tips too far into taking on the responsibility to “teach” the audience about what it’s like to be trans.
This play is decidedly joyous; the real world takes a back seat, and we get to follow along with each character’s mistakes as they learn how to speak and relate to each other – and, more critically, learn how to be themselves without the comfort of a world where you can recreate every single detail of yourself. Together they learn to be vulnerable, and it’s the smallest moments – Bette’s parallel dancing with Alec at their first “meeting”, imagined hand-holding on the bus, Alec saving a seat for Bette when they meet again – that really make this piece shine (thanks, in part, to direction by Jamie Fletcher).
It’s a rare treat to have such balanced sweetness in a piece of theatre focussed on the trans experience. Happy Meal is junk food for the soul; comforting, nostalgic, and perfectly seasoned. Save a seat for your online bestie, and let yourself fall in love.
Happy Meal is part of the Sydney Festival program. It is showing for just one week, from January 17 to 22, and you can get your tickets here.