Untitled Relationship Experiment | Big Fork Theatre

Two years in the making, this brainchild of Olivia Windsor was as touching and relatable as it was raucously funny. This was a deeply personal and intimate show that took almost as much care to foster the actor-audience relationship as it did the relationships between the characters.

Olivia was joined onstage by Samantha Stowasser, Imogen Behan-Willett and Asia Beck, who together played two couples in the throes of major relationship turning points. The actors prompted the audience to decide how long the two couples had been together as well as a few other defining features of their relationships, such as their largest joint purchase.

Through a blend of acting and storytelling the cast explored the dynamics of their queer relationships, riding the highs and lows as they encountered a range of issues from family relations, to the question of having children, to figuring out just what healthy loving support looks like for each of them. Their sole prop, a fabulous bright pink couch at centre stage took many forms; a space for planning future events and holding meaningful discussions, a watercolour painting hut, and a place for igniting passion.

One part that stuck with me in particular was Samantha’s character’s strained relationship with her mother who refused to see her daughter’s committed lesbian relationship as anything more than a close friendship, even after marriage. It brought to light the combination of humour and pain found in the common queer experience of dealing with family members who are for the most part loving and yet wilfully ignorant or unaccepting of who they are.

Olivia, Imogen, Asia and Samantha had great chemistry onstage and each brought particular strengths to the performance, though the most memorable for me was Asia’s cute but terrifying role as Tisha who said a lot by saying little, and inspired in the audience strong reactions of both cacophonous laughter and stunned silence.

A couple of times the dialogue felt a tad stilted, likely just due to opening night nerves but, as is the beauty of improv, these moments passed by swiftly and were soon forgotten as the story continued to be spun before our very eyes.

There’s nothing quite like watching improvised performance, witnessing a piece of art in the very moment when it comes into being, the words rolling off the performers’ tongue for the first time, perhaps never to be uttered again.

If the measure of a successful experiment is to make discoveries along the way then in that respect, Untitled Relationship Experiment was a raging success. Well done, team. It’s five thumbs up from me.