The Beast

The Beast by Snoo Wilson

Snoo Wilson’s The Beast, directed by David Bell, represented the extremes to which La Boite, under Billinghurst’s artistic direction, was not afraid to go.

The play’s characters “sniff cocaine, shoot heroin, roll around naked, take fits, practise the occult, talk kinky and funky language”.[i] Robertson saw it as Billinghurst “sticking pins into Queensland’s smug theatrical hide” or, in this case, using a machete rather than a pin.[ii] Tickell described it as “not a play for the weak of heart”… “an affront to mankind” …  “but the superb acting more than saves it”.[iii] Batchelor praised Bell’s visual treatment – “everything and everyone looked fantastic” – but found the lack of constraint by the actors turned the acting into “a splurge; ugly, but not faintly diabolical … the only truly diabolical thing all night was the spoken French”.[iv]

Writer: Christine Comans