From the balcony, sounds of Curtis Mayfield and new mixes of ‘My Funny Valentine’ mixed with the rhythm of the ocean and the murmer of the ultra-laid back locals and cafe-hoppers.

It’s Bondi Pavilion, and the first week of the Sydney Fringe Festival. We’re on the second floor of the Bondi pavillion, sipping on our beers, waiting for the opening of a new performance: Too Close, which promises multimedia performance with driving dance beats, following the dizzying entropy of the se(X) Generation as reflected in the lifestyle of a group of borderground Sydney-siders.

Cast are
Manny: The Oxford St Drug dealer…
Rosie: The Yuppie film-maker…
Billy: The Cynical ‘inner city grunge artist’…
Eddie: The digital whiz-kid, corporate design guru…
Melle: Teenage fashion victim…
Philip: Geek boy – reinventing himself on the internet…
Shelly: Flatemate from hell &
Tracy: Flatmate from hell’s try-hard friend.

The play itself was, I thought, was well done – expecting gritty realism, I was happy to see that the characters were treated with humour – my flatemate, who I dragged along for the experience, pointed out in the characters people we knew… and the exaggeration wasn’t always far from the truth, unfortunately.

The playwright/Director Michael Linnoy based the majority of the script on his own experiences of inner-city life in Sydney, and it is this that I thought made the play – while none of the events seemed to really lead into the dizzy nihilistic void we’d been promised (the end seemed almost accidental), the entertainment came from watching the larger than life representation of the people around us, the flashes of wisdom and ironic and sometimes downright snide comments on the status of art and subculture.

As for the thumping dance beats & multimedia…all we got was prodigy and slides from local artists – then again, they tied well into the script, and I get the feeling that a small arts grant can’t compete with the the thousands of dollars pocket money which goes into a commercial rave 🙂

This performance ended in January, however a promotional video is in production:
Contact Michael Linnoy, 4/46 Hall Street Bondi 2026, Australia.