Eddie Ray – Leader of the Resistance @ Lazy Susan’s Comedy Den
Sunday, January 19, 202o
It’s… well, it’s 2020, it’s now, and the machines have taken over the world. Not too out-there of a concept, when you think about it. Look around. Everywhere people’s faces are lit up by the screens their eyes are hopelessly transfixed by as they scroll their way through virtual reality, increasingly avoiding interactions with people and the ‘real,’ tangible world. This is the premise for the delightful satirical musical comedy, Eddie Ray – Leader of the Resistance.
This metafictional show opens with a bang as Ray runs in through the audience entrance, interacting with the crowd who make up the Resistance he is the leader of for the evening. After ensuring that everyone’s present, accounted for and that all of our phones are off, not only on silent, because the phones are “listening,” he takes his place onstage to tell the tale of how he came to be leader of the Resistance.
Ray is a remarkably engaging storyteller, and the Lazy Susan’s Comedy Den is the perfect, intimate environment for this ‘meeting’. As he regales the audience with his personal journey through technology, and particuarly, mobile phones from his childhood until the present, Ray uses a good old Nokia 3210, his iPhone (complete with Grumpy Cat background), soundbites from the Terminator movies, and a guitar.
Interweaving his story with original songs in various genres is highly effective, each track packing a punch and eliciting “yeows” from the audience. Ray is an exceptional musician, highly skilled on his guitar with a beautiful gravelly voice as he uses a loop station to harmonise with himself and create music that you can’t help but bop your head and tap your toes to.
Along with really quick costume changes and on-point lighting and sound, this is a show that keeps you highly engaged and interested throughout, while exploring the current climate of human interaction and technology in a funny, yet thought-provoking way. Such is the beauty of good satire – you can laugh along at the ridiculousness of the human race and all its folly while seriously considering the topic up for ridicule, potentially even having an epiphany or two in the process. Eddie Ray – Leader of the Resistance nails this, complete with a heartwarming and hopeful ending just as one begins to wonder whether there is any hope for us at all.
Funny, engaging, with a great soundtrack produced live by Eddie Ray on stage, if you’re into comedy like Flight of the Conchords, this show is for you. With Ray’s skill as performer and musician along with his endearing, impossible-not-to-love persona, it would be no surprise if this young show only getting off the ground at this stage becomes a festival favourite before too long.
MELISSA KRUGER
