Significant Other
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https://newtheatre.org.au/significant-other/
Date Reviewed: 01/06/2021
Significant Other, written by American playwright Josh Harmon has made its debut to Australian shores at New Town Theatre, Sydney. This wonderfully funny and compassionately hard-hitting show set in New York follows Jordan Berman (Tom Rodgers) a young, gay Jew, as he navigates life and love with his three best and outlandishly comical girlfriends, Kiki, Vanessa and Laura (Isabella Williams, Dominique Purdue, Laura McInnes). This show centres around the theme of change with the opening scene depicting Kiki’s bachelorette party setting the pace for how quickly priorities between friends can differ when romantic partners become involved. This play also accurately portrays the difficulty of dating as Jordan, a romantic at heart, who struggles to find someone to love leading to an awkward date with his crush and work colleague, Will (Matthew McDonald) as well as a few other unsuccessful attempts.
With just a cast of six, these professionals along with the director (Hayden Tonazzi) and set designer (Hamish Elliot) are a credit to the Concord Theatrical Company as the stage never felt empty nor overshadowed the overall performance. The enclosed and intimate space that New Theatre offers certainly assisted with this illusion. The geometric and staggered positioning of the set brilliantly distinguished the continual overlapping scenes and the slow but steady passage of time. This play is relatable for any person in the early to mid-adult years, particularly so for the single person in a group of paired-off friends. The constant flood of engagements, weddings and babies can be overwhelming leaving the single friend within the group feeling alone and hopeless for the future, those emotions were perfectly expressed by the actions and outbursts of Jordan.
Tom Rodgers understood and perfected the role of Jordan from the subtle hand gestures, eye contact and roller coaster of emotions, Rodgers took the audience on Jordan’s journey from a hopeful first date to avoiding difficult conversations with his grandmother (Helen Tonkin) to finally admitting feelings of desperation and loneliness. Special mention needs to go to Matthew McDonald for cleverly portraying the different background, accents, personality types and costume changes for five different characters. McDonald easily slipped from office-crush to flamboyant colleague to each fiancé/husband of Jordans troupe of friends.
Overall, this performance is a must see, it will have you laughing at the familiar antics of friendship, rooting for Jordan in his quest for love and you will be close to tears at the disappointing blows of change and love through the passage of time. Significant Other is playing at the New Theatre until the 26th of June.
A review by Katherine Morrison