Concrete Playground

Fourth in the Sydney Theatre Company's Next Stage 2011 lineup of bright, emerging young things, Money Shots is a collection of five 15-minute plays that relate in some way to the role and function of MAD DOLLAR$ in our human lives. The plays by Angus Cerini, Tahli Corin, Duncan Graham, Rita Kalnejais and Zoe Pepper are performed by STC's Residents with just a couple of costume changes each and no more stage-rearrangement than can be done while a placard is brought up to announce the next play. Money Shots covers a great deal of ground in exploring how money and identity and survival and love and hate and sex get all wound up together.

It's kind of nice that a thematic of currency-as-in-money has been used to structure an episode of a program that is based on the consideration of currency-as-in-nowness. All the plays selected reflect possibilities that are being explored in contemporary writing for theatre, and a more financially literate panic about money post-GFC: money problems in these plays are neither accidental nor within the control of the protagonists. I did think that some of the plays were a better investment than others, but hey, it's a free market.

Image: Richard Pyros and Sophie Ross in STC's Money Shots. By Brett Boardman 2011.