If this doesn’t mix the metaphors too egregiously, Megan Wilding’s new play, Game. Set. Match., channels tennis as a theme, but then whips the gloves off and totally bares its knuckles for its knockout punch.
A proud Gamilaroi woman, the writer, actor, poet and director is a genuine multi-hyphenate. Wilding’s new play is informed by that cultural background, but sees her use the first two of those skills superbly to tell a Blak and white story.
Without giving too much away – this is a play that relies on its wicked twists and turns to make an impact – Wilding has written a piece that takes us from meet-cute romantic comedy to … well, let’s just say a completely different genre altogether.
Game. Set. Match. – quick links
Wilding serves her best shot
Tightly directed by Jessica Arthur, Malthouse’s New Work Associate – Artist Development, Game. Set. Match. begins at a funeral. That’s the meet-cute part.
Joshua is the chief financial officer of a lauded and recently departed tennis player’s foundation. And he’s late for his boss’ final send-off. He seems very edgy and is easily thrown off balance when a cleaner arrives and is so startled by his unexpected presence that plates and other catering detritus from the wake fly up into the air.
He’s so on the back foot, in fact, that he immediately acquiesces when she decides it’s his responsibility to help her tidy up.
Fifteen love. From here, the relationship progresses, trading high lobs and stinging backhands as attraction between the pair sparks and repulses, before moving off court to a local bar and then an even more intimate environment.
New balls please
As Joshua, Rick Davies is wound as tightly as a drum, veering from charm to cheer to a barely restrained sexual appetite and back again. On the other side of the net is Wilding herself, playing Ray, a woman with more than a few tricks up her tennis skirt.
Aside from the pivotal through theme of colonial historical mistreatment, there are glimpses of a long line of predecessors to Ray in both film and theatre – smatterings of David Slade’s Hard Candy (2005), Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman (2020), Ariel Dorfmann’s Death and the Maiden (1991) and, closer to home, Rolf de Heer’s Alexandra’s Project (2003).
And Game. Set. Match powers its way to a denouement every bit as dramatic as those forebears. But in getting there it is certainly much funnier and more nuanced than perhaps any of them.
This is largely due to Wilding herself. Her writing is beautifully sharp, with dialogue that is simultaneously clear and concise, but also layered with subtext. And she gives a performance to match. With a never still face of a thousand expressions, she seems to be an open book, but only a fool (or a man blinded by lust) would think so.
She plays Ray with such a compelling ferocity that you can’t take your eyes off her the entire time she’s on stage. This is no reflection on Davies, who is a more than worthy opponent at the other end of the court, but this is Wilding’s work. She’s written it, she’s starring in it and she’s, naturally, given herself all the best lines and unreturnable shots.
Double fault
The play is being performed in the Beckett – the smaller of the two Malthouse spaces – and the first impression on entering the space is one of intimacy, if not downright claustrophobia. It’s all a bit too close for comfort you may say.
Isla Shaw’s sparse but extremely effective set is compact, close to the front of the stage and with walls slanting down towards the back to draw the audience in further.
A lovely bit of technical engineering whisks the back wall open to drag in the bar table and seats for the second scene, with another couple of slick changes for the final destination. All of the scene changes are handled by Wilding and Davies themselves, which adds to that claustrophobic impression that they are the only two people in the world Wilding has created.
And it’s one in which she’s served an ace straight down the line.
