When you hear “one-person show” in a theatre, what comes to mind? For me, it’s often those cringe-worthy scenes in American TV shows where friends and family attend out of obligation, offering contrived applause. Well, The Courier ain’t that.
Piers Mackenzie takes you through a day in the life of a food delivery cyclist during lockdown. Naturally, this positions the average Boorloo viewer as an outsider, and his ability to evoke different characters to bring this likely unrelatable story to life speaks volumes about his acting talent. Watching his demeanour shift like a switch as he moves between the dialogue of different characters within the cyclist’s narration makes you feel as if you’re simultaneously in the room where the story unfolds while also hearing it from a mate putting on voices as he recounts it. This duality works well in the context of lockdown stories, where Boorloo viewers have varying—and mostly minimal—degrees of relatability.
Courier. Photography by James Jovanoski.
It’s funny but not light-hearted. It’s dark but won’t leave you drained. Somehow landing in this sweet spot between clever and striking, The Courier takes you down a garden path to a shadowy end, with plenty of laughs along the way. And as you reach this final point, you realise your perception also has a duality—you’re left reconciling what you thought before and after the twist of this multi-faceted one-person show.
With clever little details in the lighting and video projection, this show delivers far more than just one person delivering dialogue. It’s a well-paced story with smart twists—shocking without being jarring. It gives the cogs in your brain time to turn as you contemplate the unravelling reality in front of you.
Courier is at The Blue Room Theatre from Feb 4-8.