At an unnamed company, the Human resource person has gone missing. Or are they dead, believed murdered? Or did such a person ever exist? And what about the missing half a million dollars from the company’s funds? These and more questions – such as who is Beyonce (No, not that one!)? – are the crux of the plot line for Big Dog Salad’s Death Of The Human Resource, a sketch comedy look at murder mysteries. As far as parodies go, this production is good but there are better ones in existence.
Whilst the overall story works, it seems to go in for overkill and starts to become monotonous. So much so that the night I reviewed one extremely rude older lady in the front row started reading a book. This sort of behaviour is disrespectful to the actors and also to the audience. I was sitting just behind her and kept getting distracted from watching the show at times because the lights caught the brightness of the book’s pages. Perhaps the candidate for a murder mystery herself? Kudos to the actors, they ploughed on relentlessly. Anyway, enough of this reviewer’s rantings – back to the review!
Unfortunately, there was no program and research has led to failure when it comes to finding the actors names (I managed to find some first names but have no idea who they belong to) so I just have to name them by the character they portrayed. The overall acting was a bit along the lines of what I call the “Goldilocks and the 3 bears” style – some was underdone (a tad), some was way overdone, and some was just right! IT guy, Peter was suitably nerdy and the office clown who you just want to punch; Leigh was a delightfully wimpy Chief Accountant; with Curtis being wonderfully sleazy and obnoxious as the boss’s son and therefore just perfect to be the district manager.
The slightly longish arm of the law is represented well by straight-laced, no-nonsense Sergeant Melpo (great booming voice) and over-eager Officer Thalia. This latter actor was very zealous in their physical acting and amazing to watch, but her energy levels bordered on exhausting to view at times.
The overall production of acting style reminded me a little of University students putting on a revue – think the Monty Python gang just starting out. The acting is tight, dialogue is delivered well, but it’s all a little bit too exaggerated for us Gen Xs/Boomers. The cast are all under 30 (one may be a little over the line) and the Millennials in the packed audience loved it.
There is indeed a place for more of this larrikin lunacy and one hopes that this company will come down South more often.