THE TEMPLE
This work will divide people; there really is no middle ground, and it certainly is one of those works which will have you scratching your head post show, asking yourself “what the fuck did I just watch?”- it is just so amazingly banal you really have to take your hats off to the creative team.
Like watching paint dry, but less entertaining, The Temple is an exercise in audience endurance. Without much of a narrative through line and dialogue that is restrictive, at best, as a whole its reductive to the point of white noise, but a kind that is so decidedly millennial, pulling teeth would be a more enjoyable experience.
The cast do what they can with such limited material; Ash Flanders is here again caught in this perpetual loop of camp tantrum throwing, and, for such an accomplished performer, every time we see him on stage it becomes more annoying, lest- frustrating, because it never seems like his playing a character, more him just being himself on stage, and sadly it’s not very endearing. Even the luminary Mish Grigor, here, does not much more than flounder around on stage.
The production values are also a misfire, the slowly expanding walls, the stark lighting and the occasional spattering of projected words, don’t really incite any deeper thought, nor help progress the performance along its tired and dull trajectory.
I mean, sure, there are just enough moments of humour to carry the work through, but only just. And the problem here is in the run time, because after the first 60 minutes, the jokes wain, and all that is left is….. well not much really. To surmise, The Temple if nothing else is a perfect example of pointless artistic expression with neither bang nor bite, some will love it, but it’s a no from this bored reviewer. Next.
