DOWN AN ALLEY FILLED WITH CATS

Reviewed by David King

We are all looking for something. Annoyingly, human nature being what it is, once we have what we want most of us want more or decide that it wasn’t what we wanted after all. We all know the obvious ones like money and fame but don’t forget friendship and knowledge and revenge or simply a different life. So when two men are locked in a room overnight competing with each other for what they want with little regard for the truth it makes for interesting theatre. It has been twenty years since DOWN AN ALLEY FILLED WITH CATS written by Warwick Moss has been produced in Australia and it is currently playing at King Street theatre in Newton until 13th May.

The setting is a run down bookstore in a multi storey building in Sydney. There are three or four bookshelves, a coat and hat stand  and two desks. It is sparse and dimly lit. Construction is happening outside and given the decor and the lack of things that light up such as mobile phones and computers it looks like we are in the eighties. Not having mobile phones together with a landline phone that is not working is going to help with the sense of isolation.There are books lying in the bookshelves which are more recent but we’ll let that slide.

Gabriel Egan returns to the theatre playing Simon Matthew. He’s a disheveled amalgam of Indiana Jones and Crocodile Dundee.He’s a rogue but not a loveable one. To use the title of the play he is a tom cat; a loner, edgy and wired. He looks after number one. As a fortune hunter he has come to this bookstore looking for a book with the location of an antique Chinese vase written on its  dust cover. His motivation is obvious, he wants money. He’s a tough guy but surprisingly when he finds out that his long time competitor for the treasure may be dead in the kitchen his main concern is not to see the body.

William Jordan is  Timothy Timmony. This name with its successive inter-dental t’s where the tongue touches the back of the teeth is jarring. It’s a self mocking name and not the name of a lead singer in a rock band. He’s run this bookstore for 31 years and in his spare time, which it seems he has a lot of, he likes to invent board games. His closest relationship is with the building’s stray cat. We learn that he once wanted to be a writer but got turned off when he surrounded himself with great authors. To use the title again, he’s an older cat whose kind and homely but has claws. He too wants money but he wants other things too.

The play is reminiscent of the ‘Maltese Falcon’ and just like the film has the right mix of tension and humour. It is like watching a chess match play out with each character getting the advantage then losing it. Both actors are convincing as men struggling to get what they want or what they think they want.