Sex cells

Adelaide Theatre Guide Review

Anna Longaretti's play 'Sex Cells' makes its Australian premiere with Galleon Theatre Group under the direction of Warren McKenzie.
The setting of the play takes place in a call centre named Aphrodite which sells sex toys. While this setting is sure to grab an audience's attention, the theme of the play has a much deeper message.
The four women employees are at different stages of their lives and the play explores the different attitudes each has towards motherhood. Overseeing this scenario is the bumbling and fairly ineffectual 'boss', Mr Causeway played convincingly by Brian Godfrey. Lesley Reed is Lily, the 'star' employee and the object of Mr Causeway's affections. She has a tenuous relationship with her son and it's not until the death of her husband that she realises that she needs to re-establish her relationship with her son. Reed captures the essence of the jaded Lily, portraying her growing awareness of the importance of family with understanding.
Anita Canala as Sylvie portrays the desperation many women feel when they seem unable to have a child and will go to any lengths to achieve motherhood. Heather Riley is effective as Janice, the mother of five, who just wants some peace, while Laura Antoniazzi is believable as Tiffany, who doesn't want children but keeps getting pregnant.
This is a well-written play which should translate well to the stage. However, as we are not given a lot of insight into the lives of each of the women and only see them in their work environment, it is difficult to relate with complete empathy to them individually. With the exception of Lily whose story develops through the course of the play, the other women's characters are unexplored.
As always at Galleon, the hard-working group of set designers and builders have produced an excellent set which makes good use of the Domain Theatre.
In summation, this is a very fine production of a slightly imperfect play.
Reviewed by Janice Bailey

Broadway World Review

The Galleon Theatre Group is presenting Sex Cells, the first play by English writer, Anna Longaretti. It can be seen at the Domain Theatre in the Marion Cultural Centre where performances are presented in cabaret format, so take a light supper. Drinks can be purchased at the venue. This play had its premiere in 2013 and this is its Australian premiere, under the direction of Warren McKenzie.

Aphrodite, a sex toy company, employs four women to take telephone orders. Lily, Sylvie, Janice, and Tiffany are supervised by the ineffectual Mr. Causeway, who spends most of his time trying to keep the peace and get them to focus on doing their jobs, which is not an easy task, as they can wrap him around their little fingers.
Lesley Reed plays Lily, the top seller who wins the employee of the month award with monotonous regularity. Her home life, though, is far less successful, caught in a loveless marriage, and having a son with whom she exchanges telephone calls at Christmas and birthdays. Reed offers a superb performance as the world weary Lily, her interpretation telling us that Lily has been drifting along in a life that is going nowhere, and doing nothing just for her. Reed shows us, in every move and facial expression, a life of dull routine, where the only small pleasure that she gets is from Mr. Causeway's glowing appreciation of her cooking.
Sylvie, played by Anita Canala, is a French woman whose body clock has been ticking for far too long for her liking, and she is still trying to have a baby, with no success. It has become an obsession and nothing else in her life matters to her. She lashes out at Lily who she sees as having what she wants, a husband and son, a full family, but who doesn't seem to appreciate it. Canala, who has a convincing and consistent French accent, presents Sylvie as intensely emotional and demonstrative in a bravura performance.
Heather Riley plays Janice, who spends much of her time mediating between Lily and Sylvie, and drying tears, having a large family these are skills that she has in spades. Riley's Lily is clearly the strong person in the group, if four such diverse women can really be called a group, taking on the role of their 'mother hen'. Riley plays a very subtle role with great skill and plenty of warmth.
Laura Antoniazzi is Tiffany, the youngest of the group, who goes to clubs whenever she can, drinks rather too much, and has overnight love affairs. Antoniazzi gives a very good impression of an 'Essex Girl', intimating that Tiffany comes to work primarily to rest and recover from one night, before leaving work to do it all again. Tiffany is not the brightest spark, and quite a bit of the conversation in the room tends to go over her head, with Antoniazzi finding not just one, but a clever range of blank expressions that draw forth laughter.
Brian Godfrey takes on the role of Mr. Causeway, who has a secret crush on Lily, but lacks the nerve to say anything. Godfrey makes Causeway a well-meaning but bumbling man with a heart of gold, a long way from being an effective supervisor.
Apart from some inconsistency in English accents, nothing new in Adelaide's amateur theatre productions, my one real criticism was with the vast amount of music. Most of it could be profitably cut as it makes voices occasionally a little hard to hear but, more importantly, when the actors create some extremely powerful and emotive situations, it ruins completely ruins the effect. It is , presumably, supposed to be creating the atmosphere for the action, but it does the opposite and, in any case, if actors cannot create emotions withour music to help them, they should not be on stage. All this needs is a brief piece of music from house lights down to the start of the actions, and a few bars at each of the scene changes.
The set is well-defined into the despatch area, office, kitchen, and rest room, with different levels, and lighting changes, used to focus attention on particular parts of the set. Warren McKenzie who, I assume, designed the set and lighting, as nobody else is acknowledged, makes good use of space, which allows more room for movement that it at first appears.
There are lots of laughs, but also drama and tragedy in Longaretti's script, which McKenzie and the cast have brought to the point of a fine performance that will surely please audiences over the next couple of weeks.
Reviewed by Barry Lenny

GLAM Adelaide Review

Sex Cells by Galleon Theatre Group follows the office lives of four women who work in a sex toy call centre, Aphrodite. The story unfolds through discussions about their lives as they search for love, family and meaning. Overseeing them at work is their boss, Mr Causeway, who is searching for some companionship himself. Warren McKenzie's production of this play trundles along slowly and, although not being terrible, struggles to gain enough pace to be engaging.
Anita Canala displays an impressive prowess with the French accent as Sylvie, who is desperate for a baby; undergoing several IVF treatments to achieve this. She delivers this struggle well and her story is most likely the easiest to understand and sympathise with.
Heather Riley, as multi-child mother Janice, and Laura Antoniazzi, as the young 'pretty-girl' Tiffany, do as well as they can but the script gives them very little to work with. Janice and Tiffany come across as stock characters, simply there to further the storylines of the other two women.
In the role of Mr Causeway, Brian Godfrey manages to bring a sweetness to the character and his secret love for Lily (although the direction to sniff her shoes seemed creepily unnecessary). He uses his body well providing good physical humour and his line-delivery provided most of the few laugh out loud moments.
There are two large issues with this production that stop it from being a truly enjoyable experience. The first is the play itself, which severely lacks substance in both plot and character. This provides the actors with very little to work off of and they do the best they can with such thin and bland archetypes. The second problem is the direction and choices made by McKenzie. Actors walk aimlessly back and forth across the stage seemingly for no reason; emotional monologues are delivered directly to the audience rather than in a more natural way; and every potentially emotional scene is marred by an awkward and unnecessary soundtrack.
Set design is strong, showing good use of levels and providing multiple areas for the action to take place upon the stage. The lighting is serviceable but it seems unnecessary for the lights to go up and down when the actors move into different parts of the stage. Costume design is similarly serviceable but Tiffany's costumes just seem to be rehashes of old costumes - this is understandably due to the time pressure of costume changes.
Galleon Theatre Group's production of Sex Cells has elements of potential, specifically from the five performers. Unfortunately awkward direction, poor writing and other odd production elements bog this show down and prevent it from becoming something better than it is.
Reviewed by Nathan Quadrio

Stage Whispers Review

By Anna Longaretti. Galleon Theatre Group. Directed by Warren MacKenzie. Domain Theatre, Marion Cultural Centre. May 19-28, 2016
Full disclosure to my readers - The Galleon Theatre Group's latest production, Sex Cells, stars Lesley Reed, a reviewer for Stage Whispers Magazine who acted in the last play I produced. The supporting cast includes Heather Riley and Brian Godfrey, who have previously been my colleagues in other theatrical endeavours. Therefore you may wish to take my (largely positive) assessment with a pinch of salt.
Despite the provocative title, Anna Longaretti's play is a relatively low-key, intimate dramedy. The story relates the day to day workplace dramas of five individuals employed at a call-centre for a sex-toy manufacturer. Though there are some amusingly naughty passages of dialogue in which the employees respond to various bizarre customer enquiries, the bulk of the play focuses on the conversations these telephonists have amongst themselves on their breaks between calls, touching upon personal difficulties that most people can relate to on some level.
Sylvie (Anita Canala) is a French immigrant in her 40s who has some slight difficulties adjusting to life in a new country and yearns to be able to have a child. This creates friction with the cynical, world-weary senior, Lily (Reed) whose relationship with her own family has soured with time. Janice (Riley) is a working mum whose attempts at mediating between these two explosive personalities, on top of balancing professional responsibilities with family commitments, often leave her feeling strung out and exhausted. The youngest member of the team, twentysomething Tiffany (Laura Antoniazzi) attempts to lighten the spirits of her colleagues by maintaining a bright and bubbly demeanour, but her chipper outer-self masks some serious uncertainties about life and love. Much the same can be said about the call centre's bungling manager, Causeway (Godfrey), who is socially awkward and has long carried a torch for Lily.
To my mind, the cast had a suitably heated, argumentative chemistry that brought the best out of the snappy, spitfire dialogue. All had reasonably convincing accents, and injected extra layers of comedy into the proceedings through their physical handling of various unusual props and their impassioned facial expressions. Antoniazzi is a standout in this regard.
For my sins, I once worked in a call centre. I can testify that the sets and props are meticulously authentic. The only grave miscalculation made by this production, to me, was the intrusive, manipulative soundtrack. At several points in the play, characters deliver soul-searching monologues and these are underscored by a piano solo reminiscent of a bad daytime soap opera. It's as if the director didn't trust that the audience to pick up on the emotion in the words, and felt the need to hammer the point home with music. Also, there are a handful of scene transitions that drag and this isn't helped by the playing of pop songs whose lyrics aren't very subtle in reflecting the emotional content of the story.
Still, all things considered, this is a relatively minor irritation. The nuanced writing and sensitive performances ultimately carry the day, despite the odd bit of directorial heavy-handedness.
Reviewed by Benjamin Orchard

Theatre Association of SA (TASA) Review

Sylvie (Anita Canala) uncompromisingly wanted a baby, Janice ( Heather Riley) had five too many, and Tiffany( Laura Antoniazzi ) didn't want one at all. Lily (Lesley Reed ) had no relationship with her son and Mr Causeway (Brian Godfrey) employer of the women, "mother henned" all four of his "girls" in his on-line sex toy call centre, Aphrodite.
Playwright Anna Longaretti reveals that the play is "completely personal " and we see as the plot unfolds her exploration of motherhood, the competition between the women and the desperation they each experience . In between taking calls for "titivators and rotating pearl g-strings" the women one- by- one reveal their attitudes to motherhood.
Director Warren McKenzie has put together a competent show, but is let down to a certain extent by the logistics of the of the Marion Cultural Centre stage and also the overall set design.
The stage is inordinately long and narrow, which does not assist the layout of the design. The four women's desks lined up across front, down stage, inhibit to a significant degree the options for stage movement, obliging the blocking to be mostly lateral. The incidental music worked well, as did the lighting in the passage of time sequences.
Lesley made the most of her tragi-comic role as Lily the woman in a loveless marriage with a son who rejected her and Laura was the sexy single girl Tiffany scorning the loss of independence due to pregnancy. Heather made us quite aware that her married life was not what every woman hoped it would be, and Anita played the sharpish Sylvie well although her French accent was not always consistent. The experienced Brian Godfrey gave a performance of the boss Mr Causeway in a rather Benny Hill-ish style, but nonethelesss showed his love for Lily.
Reviewed by Richard Lane