Groucho Marx used to host a famously edgy TV game show called You Bet Your Life.
That’s the challenge facing two very different ladies in State Theatre’s delightfully dark comedy Ripcord.
Writer David Lindsay-Abaire has set the competition in an exclusive retirement home on a superb, adaptable set design by Alisa Paterson.
We meet the incumbent, immoveable Abby (Nancye Hayes) and the newly arrived challenger, irrepressible Marilyn (Carmel Johnson) who rub each other up the wrong way, leading to a bet, which both might lose.
They are battling age, they are battling for a better view of the world and they are battling for relevance.
Director Mitchell Butel cleverly sets up the games within the games, as Abby takes Marilyn head on in a fight that gets darker as each seeks to manipulate the other by any means possible.
Nancye Hayes revels in the chance to play agitated Abby with a potty mouth and a dotty demeanour who resents most things about Marilyn.
Johnson has a ball upending Abby’s apparently idyllic life and dragging her out into the wild blue yonder.
Abby fights back by researching Marilyn’s life for her quiet revenge. How far will they go to win? Or is the game itself the thing, in which they capture each other’s conscience, on the wing.
There’s strong support from Chris Asimos as a struggling actor and concerned nurse, caught in the middle of the warring couple’s increasingly dangerous antics.
Jennifer Innes and Ezra Juanta make a madcap couple as Marilyn’s daughter and son-in-law who are drawn into the plan to drive Abby out the window.
With the world turning crazier, Nathan Page provides timely gravitas as Abby’s alienated son who forces her to face her past, as well as her future.
The show swings from calculated insanity to heart-wrenching honesty as the endgame approaches. It’s a ripper show with deadly funny consequences, don’t miss it!
