THE CULTURE - Sydney

The Culture - Flight Path Theatre (NSW)

Written by Laura Jackson. Original direction by Bethany Caputo. Tour direction by Carly Fisher.

Reviewed by Justin Clarke

Flight Path Theatre, Marrickville Until 20th May

★★★★

- Gently handled with raw, biting commentary, The Culture is led with grace by its two leads -

Walking over a neatly placed welcome mat, audiences are embraced in the intimacy of Will and Katie’s living room where Laura Jackson’s The Culture awaits to unfold in front of us. With a depth of heart and expertly paced direction, The Culture lures you in with the premise of a modern-day Will & Grace before becoming something much more sinister and extremely prevalent.

The set of The Culture feels adaptive and moveable, perfect for its tour from Broadway to Wellington, Hobart and now, Sydney. Dressed in a comfortable Sydney apartment, Will and Katie’s living room is homely and comfortable with a shared sense of a life they’ve built together since they were high school friends. The use of projections on the back wall fills up the empty spaces untouched by the set to produce text messages and speeches from politics and famous figures either presenting powerful feminism, or damning pieces of misogyny.

Jackson’s gift for naturalism is on show here.

Director, Bethany Caputo, handles Jackson’s script with a tender touch, allowing for the swift one liners from both Will (Mina Asfour) and Katie (Laura Jackson) to establish the depth of their friendship. As the play progresses and Katie falls for a man named Kale - more on that to come - the dangers of falling in love in a modern world are thrown at the audience, allowing social commentary in both the feminist and LGBTQIA+ worlds to bleed through.

Jackson’s script is carefully written, walking a tightrope between being didactic, and wholly relevant and heartfelt. Both Will and Katie’s characters are extremely well written, to the point where the audience could easily have been watching a recording play out. Jackson’s gift for naturalism is on show here. Through harnessing the medium of the podcast, Jackson creates a relatable and comfortable space for the character’s to present monologues, and it’s here we also see and hear them at their most vulnerable.

Social commentary runs rampant in The Culture, with Jackson throwing the personification of toxic masculinity and misogyny onto the character of Kale (who names their son after a lettuce?) whilst also not being afraid to explore the violent issues that women face in Australia today. Some at this very moment even.

Mina Asfour shines in this production

There is an argument that perhaps there are too many comments being made in this play, that some were best left out as to not overload the story and allow the spotlight on each to jump with much more grace and ease.

Mina Asfour shines in this production. Asfour boldly explores each and every corner of Will’s character, with a versatility that is both brazen, hysterical and heartbreaking. He felt entirely natural within the space and developed the believability with Jackson’s Katie to the benefit of the production. Producing silent tears in his character’s lowest parts of the play showed that Asfour is one to watch.

As her own character, Katie, Jackson is outwardly brave and outspoken. There are moments where discussions were had that Katie had moments of satire on the “woke feminists” of today, but Jackson’s journey as Katie was far too crushing for this to wholly be true. Her final monologue (read: podcast) brought her character full circle and was handled gently by Jackson to give her a soft landing.

The Culture is not the first show you’d consider for a touring production, but one that inherently works extremely well, due to both its prevalent, resonating issues, and its slick direction. The natural relationship within its two leads will leave you wanting to go back again and wish that their podcasts were available to be downloaded now.

PLAYWRIGHT Laura Jackson STARRING Laura Jackson Mina Asfour DIRECTOR Bethany Caputo CREATIVE PRODUCER & TOUR DIRECTOR Carly Fisher LIGHTING DESIGNER Capri Harris SOUND DESIGNER Charlotte Leamon STAGE MANAGER Colleen Willis GRAPHIC DESIGNER Brandon Wong DRAMATURG Catherine Fargher

The Culture, Powersuit Productions | Review

The Culture, written by and starring Laura Jackson, is the empathetic and nuanced story of a young woman’s experience of domestic violence in the age of social media, and its revelations about our societal understanding of what it means to be a feminist.

In this era of loud and proud female empowerment, we can be predisposed to unfairly judge women who experience domestic violence, sexual assault, and the limitations of the glass ceiling, “I would have left the first time he hit me, why didn’t she?’ Apparently, having greater awareness of the epidemic that is violence against women means that if we experience gender-based violence or discrimination, it’s our own fault.

Jackson doesn’t hold anything back in this new and improved Will and Grace-esque tale of the straight-girl-gay-guy bestie duo, bringing Katie Monroe (Jackson) and Will Archer’s (Mina Asfour) 2023 inner Sydney world to life in a brightly coloured apartment complete with pink suits, podcasts, Alexa and line-for-line quotations from the Gillard misogyny speech.

Direction by Bethany Caputo is art imitating life in its truest form, as she ensnares you in Katie and Will’s world. Extroverted Katie is bursting with feminist pride and sees herself becoming Prime Minister one day, while introverted Will just wants to meet a nice guy and have life stay as it is. They’ve built a social media following through their podcast, ‘Don’t Get Me Started,’ and are obsessed with Cherry Ripes. Apart from the odd dickhead groping Katie at a bar, life seems pretty breezy. Until it’s not. As the red flags become increasingly obvious over the course of the 75minute show, you desperately cling to the hope that everything is going to be okay if you just ignore them. I say again, art imitating life.

Any woman in her 20s-30s will see themselves in Jackson’s portrayal of Katie, so positively committed to standing with women experiencing domestic violence, but so ashamed when it happens to her. Asfour’s Will is a flawed but loving friend, endearing in his morning boogying in the kitchen, frustrating in his irrational boy troubles, and genuine in his care and concern for Katie, which is palpable in every scene. Will’s support of Katie in crisis could be a textbook guide to survivor-led responses to abuse.

The sensitivity and understanding with which Jackson and Caputo have produced The Culture will, I hope, make each viewer take pause. An achievement in theatre for social change and women everywhere.

REVIEW: Two Twenty-Somethings In The 21st Century Navigate The Aspects Of Social Behavior That Have Sadly Become Accepted In THE CULTURE.

by Jade Kops | May 15, 2023 |

Saturday 13th May 2023, 7:30pm, Flight Path Theatre

Laura Jackson's (Playwright and Performer) THE CULTURE considers what modern society has deemed 'accepted' behavior with a realistic expression of the possible lives of two twenty-somethings. Updated since its first presentation in 2016, this work highlights how little we've come as a civilized society where the statistics for violence against women remains high doesn't seem to be reducing despite repeated calls for awareness and protections.

The premise of THE CULTURE is that Katie (Jackson) is a cis, het, white, twenty-something advertising agent working on a new campaign for women's shapewear. She lives with her best friend since school, Will (Mina Asfour), a cis, gay, Person of Colour. Aside from their day jobs, though its never clear what Will does for money, the seemingly perpetually single duo are video bloggers with what appears to be a relatively dedicated following of people willing to listen to their rants and antics that range from the banal, to the at times deep and insightful. While Katie believes she's a fierce feminist and would never be the type of girl to forgo her values for flattery, she seems to have done just that, despite Will's ongoing warnings, because, as a strong woman, she doesn't need a man to protect her, not even Will.

The entire work takes place in Katie and Will's apartment and Production designer Tetta Askeland has dressed the corner stage of Flight Path Theatre with a generally open plan space with enough delineation between the spaces of living room, filming nook and kitchen. How Director Bethany Caputo has the duo interact with space also alludes to other spaces like a bathroom mirror and bedrooms, masked by open wardrobes which give an indication of the characters' personal style and how it evolves. Capri Harris' lighting design highlights the relevant space while also assists with the expression of the passing of time. Charlotte Leamon's sound design helps reflect the characters personalities, particularly with the songs "Siri" selects for Will.

Presented with heart and honesty by instantly likable Laura Jackson and Mina Asfour, and THE CULTURE considers the range of things that we as a society, and particularly women, have become conditioned to accept as normal behavior though we should really be treating it as not normal and it should really be called out, and, in certain circumstances, reported to authorities. "Katie" cites a statistic that 1 in 3 women have experienced violence. These statistics are not fiction, they are current. As a society, we have perpetuated the myth that 'chivalry' and 'romantic gestures' are desirable traits without examining the intent behind them particularly if they are masking controlling and manipulative behaviors. As a society, we have taught women to feel ashamed, guilty or stupid for not seeing the signs that someone has the capability for physical or emotional violence or abuse. THE CULTURE seeks to raise awareness of these flaws in our acceptance of behavior so that people will hopefully have the courage to speak up, not blame themselves, and reach out for help, either for themselves or their friends and loved ones. With Katie and Will also having a "public profile" of people that follow them via the video blog, THE CULTURE also serves as a statement to anyone that does have the ability to be a louder voice through their platforms, to speak up and use that platform to support others if and when they can.

Packing a powerful message in the 75 minutes of stage time, THE CULTURE is comedy combined with hope that one day this work will be dated and a piece of historic commentary rather than contemporary possibility.

Chuck Moore reviews about: The Culture

Two best friends, - Katie (Laura Jackson), a feisty marketer, and Will (Mina Asfour), a supportive and introverted gay man - face the worst of society’s dominant, crushing culture, and finally have to push back or be fatally squashed. Besties, single as pos and housemates, the pair at first take on things via humour, their friendship, and a self descriptive podcast “Don’t Get me Started”. But they are hopelessly ill equip when they go looking for love, and things start going horribly vulnerable and wrong. Writer Jackson first performed ‘The Culture’ back in 2015, as a gripping follow-up to her astonishingly good exploration of social media bullying and real life exploitation ‘Handle It’ (2014). Now in 2022, the social and technology landscape has changed, but the issues she raised back then sadly have not (it would be nice to look back on the original as a snapshot of a long moved on from moment in time). So Jackson, directors Bethany Caputo (remote) - Carly Fisher (on tour), and the team at Powersuit Productions have taken the basics and Katie’n’Will characters of the original ‘Culture’ and rebuilt it from scratch, into the structure also used in films like ‘Promising Young Woman’ and the original (not the hideous remake) ‘Stepford Wives’ – dark satiric humour and interesting ideas/characters to start, a creeping menace slowly emerging. The latest social media tools are incorporated (plus Jackson has always been a wiz at using projected-on-the-walls smart phone messaging in her work), the relationship boundaries of friendship, the threats to the pair’s happiness and safety are condensed to specific encounters – Will’s rejections by closeted partners, Katie’s creepingly controller of a new boyfriend – and that humour/satire is ramped up (Podcasting, of all things becomes a hero of sorts), local “stars” and issues are included (name dropping for the likes of Jacinda, Julia and various wrong wing reptiles) while the issues raised have lost none of their impact. The team has designed a big, elaborate apartment set full of small details, and Jackson’s writing is sharper than ever (which is saying something). Best of all, her play never loses sight of the people – Jackson and Asfour, individually and as an “inseparable (or are they?) friends” double act are brilliantly riveting and never doubt from a moment genuine. Nor does her touch that sometimes showing, not saying, can pack a horrible emotional jolt as the true status of Katie’s relationship and crumbing self strength is exposed. ‘The Culture’ is back, and at last playing at “home” (Sydney) again - and it is absolutely not to be missed.

#Powersuitproductions #TheCulture #flightpaththeatre

Flight Path Theatre: 3-20 May 2023 ex Mon+Tue (Hut 9, 142 Addison Rd, Marrickville)