Review of Sweet Child of Mine at The Neo-Futurists in collaboration with The Last Tuesday Society

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Sweet Child of Mine and it was devised by Bron Batten and her parents Jim and Linda. It was about what art really is. They are trying to find out together. I thought that that was good because they were not trying to be apart from each other. They start with a bunch of different opinions and are trying to find a way so that all of their opinions could work together. At the beginning the parents say "No nudity," but then later Bron crosses off "no" and just says "nudity" because they are disagreeing about what theatre really is. This play is really funny, but it also has some things that you should know about theatre, like why people do it and why it is enjoyable.

I thought that the parent videos were really funny because most of the time they talked about things their kid did when she was little. I liked when they talked about her being a beaver in the school play because it was funny. Sometimes even if old people aren't that old they are different from you so it is kind of funny to you how they talk and how they act. There was this really funny part that I liked where Jim was kind of flirting with his wife on camera and I thought it was interesting because you felt like you actually knew these people. That showed that they were happy being husband and wife.

There was this kind of disturbing part where Bron came out in a chicken mask and a white unbuttoned dress and there were these chickens on the screen behind her and blood started coming out of her mouth. And she started smashing all these eggs, and as she smashed the eggs there was a closeup of a chicken laying an egg, and it wasn't that far back; it was up close with the egg emerging from the chicken's body. I think that that was supposed to be a joke because she said "If you are not doing this, that means you aren't doing theatre." There are many many plays, and almost none of them are all about chickens laying eggs and blood coming out of chickens' mouths! It is a joke that says that theatre can come in many different ways, and sometimes it is weird.

I liked the part where Bron dressed up like a beaver and came out in this beaver costume and got a can of beer and opened it and started to drink it. And then she said, I need a volunteer. Then she said, "Well, here's your script. You're going to be me, and we're going to clear something up with my mom. My mom will be played by my mom," as she takes out her telephone. I thought that that was really clever because she just called up her mom in Australia and the volunteer had to read the script. And I won't give the speech away to you, because it was really funny. It showed me that art can be sudden and what you expect cannot always be what happens.

The blue paint was weird but awesome. Bron came onstage in a white outfit and was dancing this dance, and a little bit later when the dance kind of went crazy she just rolled around and somehow she got all this blue paint on her. It was supposed to be like one of the exercises that they did in dance school that she talked about in the first parent video. The parents didn't really get it at first, and then they kind of got it a little later. She was supposed to pretend that she was rolling around on the floor and she had to get herself covered in the blue paint. She wanted to do it literally and not just figuratively. I think the audience is supposed to feel like her parents and her parents feel like, "Oh, now I kind of understand it."

People who would like this show are people who like beavers who have beer, chickens, and blue paint. People should go see this show because it is funny, touching, and educational. Go with a parent like I did! They will probably like it and then you can talk about it while eating cream puffs because that is what me and my mom did.

Photos: Max Milne Photography