Haven’t been to a small performance space for the theatre for quite a while since COVID. I was, and still am pedantic about going on to public transport or into small crowded space. However, once in a while, you do need to take a leap of faith, so that’s what I did with One Hour No Oil.
Judging from the title, you might think this is just all about climate activism with people throwing tomato soup at paintings. If you thought so, you couldn’t be more wrong about it.
One Hour No Oil chronicles the relationship between two parties – one as a service provider and the other as a client, and how they were impacted by the environment and culture around them. It provides an objective description of what’s going on around them, and the decisions they voluntarily made, or the paths they unconsciously accepted. It is about the difference in cultural perception without stereotyping the whole cultural division, which I think is the part I loved most.
I have always been an advocate of diversity casting and correct cultural representation in the media and entertainment industry in Australia. As a result, there was a period I went to every show about ‘cultural representation’ or ‘cultural storytelling’. With such a high number of ‘body count’ you tend to have your fair share of misses. And one of things that usually put me off in some of these shows was how some ethnic creatives used cultural stereotypes to propel their work, and then ended up further ingraining the stereotypes about those cultures. That was not the case with One Hour No Oil.
For me, the breath of fresh air of One Hour No Oil was how accurately it described the two different cultures and their world views without being judgemental. The balance between diving into the cultural divide without highlighting the social judgement from the other party was what made One Hour No Oil a great piece of theatre. The awakenings or non-awakenings were totally the choice of the two characters in question, and no one else. They did not try to change because of social pressure, but because of internal processing – most choices were made knowingly, whether they wanted to admit or not, and the resolution to the ripple effects from those choices were also their own choices, and nobody else’s. Culture is part of them, but not all of them. While at the same time the unconscious cultural play impacting them on nearly every single decision they made.
I don’t want to give away too much about the story, for talking any bit of it could give away potential spoilers. But what I wanted to emphasise is that, it has been some time since I saw something so engaging in a small theatre space. This is especially there were elements that I usually dislike. People who knew me know that I am not a big fan of physical or movement theatre. I just don’t find them engaging and they were just not my cup of tea. However, despite there were lots of movement driven story telling in One Hour No Oil, I enjoyed every single one of them. For me, the movement-centric parts made sense. They were within context, and not just a product of creative freedom for free thinking and open interpretation. And as the show evolved, similar movements you saw before evolved within the context of the story telling, and became a kind of a signature, not just for the play, but also for the story of the two characters involved. For me, that’s physical theatre done right.
The other aspect that I do appreciate is the application of live music on stage. I know, some people thought that it is a cliché nowadays to use live music instead of soundtracks. But the truth is in this production, the live music is not just music acting as an emotional lead for the audience, it was technically one of the characters in the story telling. Sometimes it was so meta that it became the conscience of those characters and when that happened it shot some sort of epiphany to both the characters and the audience. Alec Steedman’s impeccable timing on those cues and musical parts contributed hugely to enrich an otherwise straightforward two handler for around 100 minutes.
However, the whole play could have fallen flat if it was not for the chemistry exhibited by both actors on the stage. They were contrasting characters – from physique to mannerisms, but how they built the trust and oscillating the balance of power between them during the progress of the play were played out meticulously by the two leads John Gomez Goodway and Shaw Cameron. There were a lot going on with the script – from normal dialogues, to inner monologues, and physical movements, plus at times fourth wall breaking. If they were not managed properly, it could just become a huge ball of entanglement leaving the audience confused. However, this was not the case here. Each diversion or change of pace were executed precisely by the actors without turning the whole play into nothing but a technical piece. Of course, apart from the precision and emotional charge of the actors, which made this play so engaging, credits also needed to be given to the co-writer and Director of the play Kenneth Moraleda (the other writer being Jordan Shea), because under his pair of eagle eyes, every piece of the puzzle was exactly in the right place at the right time.
I knew that sooner or later, I will need to get into this whole ‘living with COVID’ mode and start doing things I like in relation to the society I live in, and theatre has always been a huge part of my life. So, I am glad that in my first dive back in, I dived into this great sea of cultural emotion and relationship that did not leave me awash or draining.
One Hour No Oil is currently on a limited run till Saturday, 05 November 2022 at the Kings Cross Theatre (in the Kings Cross Hotel). Jump in before it’s too late.
