Review: MANBO at The Pleasure Garden

MANBO at The Hat Trick @ The Pleasure Garden
Thursday, February 16, 2023

8/10

Fringe regular and weekly award winner Sam Dugmore returns to the Perth stage in a flurry of action, comedy and outrageous muscles with MANBO.

A love letter to the Stallones and Schwarzeneggers of movies past, the show followed the titular character, Manbo, a war hero who had left the military but finds himself dragged back into action against his best intentions.

Dugmore is excellent as the big-muscled, macho man, bringing Manbo to life with his high-energy performance, running, jumping and rolling around the stage. Yet he also brings solemnity and sincerity to Manbo’s character, as a troubled soldier trying to rediscover himself, which creates an interesting depth to his overall portrayal, while still maintaining the show’s comedic appeal. The combination of lighting, sound design and imaginative and entertaining props and costumes produces an exciting show, however Dugmore’s hilarious moments of mime, sound effects and physical comedy unequivocally sell the piece as thoroughly entertaining.

As MANBO brought new characters into the show, including the typical Russian villain, or the passionate American commander, each was delivered with complete conviction and variance, with Dugmore expertly executing the character swaps and nailing each persona’s accent and characterisation.

There were moments of audience participation throughout, though, for most punters, this included exciting, seated responses to the action in the show, such as pretending to ‘shoot’ the characters on stage in a James Bond-eqsue high octane opening. For others, this meant joining Dugmore on stage as additional characters in the story. Dugmore’s ability to guide participants, and respond to their often-quirky interpretations of the story and improvisation opportunity was hilarious, and a testament to his experience in the role, surely having seen it all at this point.

Underneath the silliness and fun of the piece, the show was an incredibly clever and thoughtful performance. Its balancing of conventions, cliches and archetypes called back to beloved action movies and drew some of its most hilarious and occasionally poignant moments from its invocation and silent commentary on themes and ideas of nationalism, violence and toxic masculinity.

The latter being more evident throughout the piece, the show’s highly purposeful presentation of toxic masculinity as an underlying narrative in every famous action movie was refreshing and well executed. This is particularly evident in several ‘on-the-nose’ moments, such as the naming of the male audience participants, and the referring to the one female participant simply as ‘contact woman.’ When the female audience member ‘dies,’ Manbo thanks her for serving his story and throws her in a lake, as opposed to the lengthy periods of mourning the male characters. While these little elements are quiet among the more diverting moments of epic mime combat and action scenes, they demonstrate a thoughtfulness in the writing which truly elevates the quality of this piece.

For those who enjoy a fast-paced, highly funny comedy romp through the glory and absurdity of 80s action movies, MANBO will delight and entertain.

BEC WELDON