Review: Out for the Count at The Blue Room Theatre

Out for the Count at The Blue Room Theatre
Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Part of The Blue Room Theatre’s jam-packed Summer Nights 2025 program, Out for the Count by Ramble City is a tight, 45-minute two-hander brimming with physicality. A thought-provoking, meaningful examination of performed masculinity through the lens of professional wrestling, this piece has been brought to Bluey’s Kaos Room with an absolute precision that can only be the result of a work that’s clearly been well developed with much care and consideration.

Entering the performance space, the audience is seated alongside two sides of a wrestling ring, ropes and all. And yet, instead of a wrestling ring, this battle will take place in what appears to be a young man’s room; a pair of red sneakers sit beside a single bed, seemingly hurriedly made, in the opposite corner, there’s a table in the centre, and the floor is strewn with items such as a footy and action figures. The far wall is adorned with posters of bodybuilding athletes, Superman, and Lucha libre-style wrestlers.

The action begins as performer Henry Kent enters, reminiscent of Clark Kent, dressed in a suit—tie and all—although he quickly dispenses with his formal wear for the aforementioned red sneakers with red socks over blue wrestling tights under red wrestling shorts. Clark Kent has begun to transition into Superman. Looking at the posters on his wall, he tries out a bodybuilding pose before quickly dropping the facade. He seems unhappy, and we begin to wonder about the occasion that required him to wear the black suit and tie today in the first place.

Suddenly, we’re surprised by the entrance of performer Oliver Hughes, who had been in the performance space all along as he jumps out of his hiding place! He’s dressed in the same red and blue Lucha libre wrestling outfit, including the same red sneakers, only he’s wearing a mask as well. The ante is upped from zero to a hundred immediately as incredible acrobatic grappling ensues in the style of WWE wrestling, table-smashing and all, and in such a small room the fight choreography of these two performers had the entire audience gasping, yet they did not put a single foot wrong, confidently making use of every inch of the space available to them.

After the initial grappling is over, the dynamic between these two begins to unfold. Over the course of the piece, it is revealed that Kent’s wrestling alias is Atlas and Hughes’ is Icarus. Hughes acts as a sort of mentor, coach, and trainer to Kent, taking him through his paces, always quipping and motivating, but not always in the healthiest of ways. Dressed the same, these are two sides of the same bourgeoning personality, two parts of one young man struggling against one another, pushing and pulling and vying for the upper hand.

Deeper turmoil is revealed with only small sidelong mentions of the traumatic event that Kent’s character is currently trying to process in the background of his inner struggle, which manifests physically in the sometimes toxic character of Hughes. To and fro the two go, from playing nice to arguing, from fighting to dancing—always with excellently controlled physicality and top-notch choreography—as the complexity of a young man’s consideration of masculinity, his identity, the example set by his forebears, and the culture around him plays out.

Co-directed by both performers and Sam Rumpel, who also took on the roles of Stage Manager and Costume Designer, the choice of professional wrestling as a framework for Out for the Count is particularly relevant in performance studies discourse at the moment, with performance scholars such as Sharon Mazer writing about the ways that live performance in arenas such as that of the WWE impacts and changes society and culture.

In a world where Andrew Tate is influencing our young men on masculinity and identity, Out for the Count is an important, timely piece. Well-informed and carefully crafted, it’s firmly situated alongside issues contemporary performance is concerned with. A raw and beautiful work that will help anyone catch a glimpse into the complexity of ideas around masculinity that young men might be grappling with today, excellently presented and performed by gifted, committed actors whose complete trust in each other during performance is a beautiful sight to behold.

MELISSA KRUGER