Review: SUDS Major Everynight — An all-inclusive package holiday to your best nightmares

Imaginative theatre has a new set of puppet masters

Image credit: Thomas Hennessy

Everynight is the perfect production for those who like fantastic voyages through imagination, breathtaking musical numbers, and contemplating what happens if you buy a ticket to your dreams. In SUDS’ new showstopping fantasy, we’re introduced to the dodgy dream-travel agent ‘Everynight’, a sinister startup that profits from people who’ll pay any price to live their dreams. People such as the queer and heartbroken B (Carla Field), who’s dead set on seeing their deceased dad again after having spotted him on a train in  dreamland.

However, as B gets shoved into the beautifully staged multiverse of sleeping fantasy, they end up facing multiple subselves, evil kilt-clad deers, their dad’s sentient coat suffering from identity/existential crisis, imaginary friends and band members (including Death), dream cops, and grotesque monsters claiming to be their father – just about everyone but their dad. This ambitious assemblage of characters was made possible by the ample use of puppets and video, rendering the experience quite cinematic. And given the nature of the plot it’s clear that the script wouldn’t have it otherwise – it would be quite messy if every tangent and digression was acted out on stage through conventional means. With subselves, imaginary friends, and other real and surreal beings interacting, flashbacking and fighting for love and recognition, using video and puppets to represent them allowed the production to breathe.

Using puppets to represent the people appearing in B’s dream was also an efficient way to symbolically show that, although they aren’t controlled by B,they have no independent existence outside of B’s dream. Only Death, the dream cops (who hop from dream to dream to uphold their shaky interpretation of law and order) and B’s father (who puppeteers his own coat) are not portrayed by puppets, signalling that their existence is independent of the dreamscape. And some scenarios that are first shown on a screen are later acted out on stage — some dreams do come true.

Equally impressive is how the script tames such a rich menagerie of situations, characters, and plot twists without letting it collapse into an unkempt array of hilarious but chaotic sketches. The show stays suggestive and complex, yet clear and coherent. At times I thought that the show might lapse into complete mystic randomness with the excuse that it’s all just a dream anyway, but no narrative strand is left behind. They all eventually get folded into the centre again, plaiting a strong, red thread relentlessly dragging the story forward. 

All but one. The kilt-clad, Scottish-speaking deer rambling on about free forests in a heavy Scottish accent seems out of place and completely disappears after it turns out that it’s working for an advertising conglomerate. Out of place in a suitable way though. The show hits the sweet spot with just the right amount of wackiness to make its depicted dreams authentic, yet with enough narrative logic and continuity to make it impossible to accuse it of using the format of a dream as a handy excuse for nonsense.

Interesting philosophical questions arise as the creatures in B’s dreams demand recognition and respect. Coat gets mortally offended when B calls him out for being a figment of B’s own imagination and Grid, B’s narcissistic imaginary friend and band member, gets upset when B responds to his declaration of love by saying that it’s not real. According to Coat and Grid, regardless of how they came into being they’re sentient beings worthy of love and respect all the same.

The most lovable character in the show however is Death (Jim Bradshaw), a sensitive soul equipped with empathy, burnout, Chaplin’s trousers, and a deep longing for company and creative expression. He joins B’s band on the bass but doubts the artistic value of his music which he deems to be devoid of meaning since his life is all about ends. With pleading insomniac eyes, he turns to the audience to explain that he really does try to make the best of the end of their lives. And Death doesn’t give up, he wants B to like him so bad that he makes a pair of shoes for them. B approves of the shoes, forgiving Death for taking their dad. Death suggests that life is like a song: you can only understand how good it is when it ends — you never know what you have until you lose it. A slight rustle is heard in the crowd as the audience catapults their eyebrows into their hairlines.

Given that Death’s dream is to become a pop star, it’s no wonder that Everynight’s music is brimming with life. A live band delivered spunkily surreal tunes that elevated each and every scene they accompanied. Music Director Matthew Forbes and his team can be thanked for the melodious composition. 

In the end, B gets to see their dad again, this time not dismissing the encounter as a dream but affirming and staying in its reality. He asks B what they wanted to say, but they say that he already knows it anyway. When you risk everything to say something, you might end up realising that there’s no need to say it at all. They hug, the audience sobs, the dream thieves at ‘Everynight’ are trapped, and I walk home through campus absorbing the happy ending, marvelling at the fact that it’s our very own dramatic society at the University of Sydney, rather than a professional production company, that we have to thank for one of the best shows and exercises in death-defyingly imaginative compassion Sydney theatre has to offer. 

Everynight is on at the Seymour Centre until November 12, tickets available here.

Program and full cast and crew list available here.