Nineteen | Underground Theatre Company
Underground Theatre Company’s production of Nineteen by Shane Pike was simultaneously a scathing and sympathetic dissection of toxic masculinity as told through the slice-of-life trials and tribulations of four young men.
All images: Nathaniel Knight
Shane Pike was one of my university tutors during my drama degree at QUT and I had the pleasure of being able to see the first production of this work, featuring cast members Leonard Donahue, Jackson McGovern, Silvan Rus and Daniel Hurst, directed by Pike himself at the Powerhouse. I remember walking away from that production feeling flawed at Pike’s courage to tackle difficult themes and explore a slice of society that so often gets overlooked.
That same feeling was present when I left this student theatre production. Pike’s powerful script isn’t afraid to tackle difficult questions about how society treats young men and how that effects how young men view society. Narrated by Millsy (Ethan Waters), the play explores the story of four friends (three nineteen, one twenty-one) living in a share house who try to cope with the transition into adulthood and all of the struggles of finding a place in society in which they’ve never had one before.
Liam Wallis had a strong voice as an emerging director in the group scenes and in the intimate one-on-one dialogues. However, it fell short during transitions and in Millsy’s audience addresses which were frequent occurrences throughout the plot. Both aspects needed some more polish in the rehearsal room as unnecessary movement split the focus too much for me, lessoning the impact of dialogue as a result.
All images: Nathaniel Knight
Overall, the actors as an ensemble were quite tight and captured the emotional repression and despondency that their characters were feeling. A special mention to Dominic Graves, who gave his character Noah’s broken masculinity and repressed trauma nuance and an emotional depth that was called for.
Nineteen was a brave and bold choice for a student theatre company to tackle. Whilst it needed refining, the message was clear and the audience felt its emotional blows.
