Subtlenuance is a remarkable example of a clever indie theatre company, working in intimate spaces with economical but effective staging. Shut Up and Driv; Or Sex, Liberty and the Automobile, an exploration of the car’s place in Australian society and psyche, is an especially engaging example of their distinctive approach. In a fast-paced, revue style format this high-energy performance has its audience both laughing at its satirical take on our contemporary world and feeling nostalgic for the passions of their youth.
Central to the action, as a symbol and a versatile prop, the rounded front end of a scarlet Hillman Super Minx projects from the wall. The performance opens with cast gathered around it, living the teenage dream. The car is their passport to freedom, enabling escape from both parents and the constrictions of suburbia to find romance by the ocean to the accompaniment of the guitar. However, as the sensitively sung “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” suggests, the very mobility made possible by the car opened up the unspoiled beaches to the parking lot, the hotel and shopping strip.
The evocative seaside sequence vanishes as an auto executive takes the stage. In a clever mixture of wit and cynicism he pretends to devalue humanity and valorise nature but the bottom line is his real interest. Enterprisingly he turns the Circle of Care theory into a joke, totally freeing himself from any responsibility for others or to the future. However, in a return to the seaside scenario the attractions of the adventurous spirit in an eternal search for “truly living” seems perilously close to a rejection of personal responsibility and inability to commit.
In an evocative sequence, the car’s back seat becomes a private world of fulfilled desire for young lovers. Separated by a whole week and distance, they come together in a world of passion on Saturday night, the young woman’s pleasure only slightly lessened by the need to evade parental questioning about her late return. For an excited young man returning from a car chase movie, the super-charged auto is an assertion of his desire to transcend limitation through sheer strength. However, a car is also a massive steel weapon that can accidentally maim and kill with far-reaching repercussions for friends and family. “I can’t breathe”, says a traumatised sister of an accident victim.
When the executive makes his return it is to respond to the challenge of the car’s detractors. As a prolific user of the world’s non-renewable resources and contributor to air pollution, can the tide be turning against the auto? An amusing circle of cyclists mock their critics and lycra jokes, and the executive’s acolytes do their best to rebrand climate change denial and to find the right stories to sell their product. All they need, the executive says, “is imagination used with laser precision”.
Despite increasing road rage and an intrusive nanny state, could we surrender our addiction to this cultural icon so entrenched in road movie and pop song? Could our ever-expanding circle of care include the sacrifice of the car to the benefit of the cosmos? The wonderfully versatile and spirited cast, Robert Roworth, Michael Smith, Maddy McWilliams, Kit Bennett, Bonnie Kellett, Sam Glissan, Sonya Kerr, Eli Saad, Jordie MacKinnon, Tom Nauta, inspires us to reassess the intimate role of the car in our lives and to leave the show in high good humour.
