★★★★☆
Definitely NOT a Hungry Game: A Parody Musical
Presented by DramaFreak Productions
Where: The Parks Theatre
When: 26th February - 8th March @ 7:30pm
Definitely NOT a Hungry Game puts a hilariously Australian and gen z spin on a similarly yet legally distinct YA book/movie series, ramping the comedy up to 11 with some killer vocals to boot.
We follow Katniss (Freya Moore), a girl from District 12 (also known as “The Tasmania of Panem”) who has a major case of main character syndrome, as she fights her way through the H***** G**** against 23 other children with her district partner… Pascal? Patrick? Pietro? (Tom Kelly). All the while seeing the reactions of her friends and family as they watch the games back home.
The major standout of this production was the cast. Each of them brought so much energy and talent to their roles that you could look at anyone in any given scene and still be entertained. Aside from just the fantastic vocal performances — that often joined in mind-melting harmonies — the cast also showcased their immense skill in both comedic and emotional delivery.
Some personal highlights were the District 12 reaction trio (Madeline Palmer as Primrose, Jordan Batten as Gale, and Alex Gonzalez as Mom), Robbie Alexander as a dragged-up Effie, and Holly Severn as a very Karen-from-Mean-Girls-esque Glimmer.
And not only were the cast amazing, the material they were performing was hilarious all the way through. Jokes were everywhere, from blink-and-you-miss-it lyrics in the songs (including bleeping out whenever the cast would say The Hunger Games, to avoid copyright), to various meme sounds each time a character died, theatre meta references (the Wicked no-fly show parody really got me), and plenty of Adelaide localised jokes (shoutout to the Malls Balls), it was a good time the whole way through.
The group that I saw the show with had a particularly fun experience, as two out of the five of us were targeted in some audience crowd-work parts of the show. One friend was the target of Ceaser Flickerman’s (Ethan Bourke) manic energy with a microphone being shoved in his face, while I was given Primrose’s cat to hold during Katniss’ tracker jacker drug trip.
No show is without fault however, and I do think there were a couple minor things that could have gone better. Drawing the most disappointment from me specifically were the projected backgrounds — all AI generated images. In such an outstanding showcase of human creativity, surely there were ways to convey the setting of each scene without using AI. Along with that, some of the accents were a little iffy. Gale was the only character to use an Australian accent with everyone else using American accents to varying degrees of success.
On a more technical note, the audio mixing was a little heavy on the instrumental, sometimes making it difficult to hear the lyrics of the songs. Compounded with a fair few instances of microphones not turning on until halfway through a line, you really had to make sure your listening ears were on.
I would recommend Definitely NOT a Hungry Game: A Parody Musical to just about anyone who likes The Hunger Games or who has ever identified as a theatre kid. So if you want to see a comedic yet heartfelt parody with amazing songs, acting, and writing, make your way up to The Parks Theatre for a fantastic night.