AFTERNOON WINE BAR REVIEW (MELBOURNE FRINGE FESTIVAL)
DAILY REVIEW RATING:
*****
To go to Flag Youth Theatre’s Afternoon Wine Bar you enter through the side gate of an ordinary-looking house in North Fitzroy. In the 15 minutes you spend there you won’t encounter anyone older than 14 , but winsomeness is not what this crew are about. Among them is a boy in a hazchem suit and gas mask, and a girl cooking up something strange in a heart-shaped baking tin, but surprise and mystery are essential to the effect, so too much detail would itself be a spoiler.
It’s beautifully designed: rooms open out of rooms, with a double row of bead curtains creating magical transitions from one to another, bright light and soft light divide and deepen the small spaces. And the performers are compellingly spooky and self-possessed: at first I felt self-conscious about being The Critic Come to Judge, but it turned out the power relation was completely different.
It’s a tiny, perfectly-formed Surrealist happening that ought to be one of the hits of the Fringe. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
