Follow The Lines. The Bread & Roses Theatre.

Olivia Pryle’s urban comedy drama Follow The Lines concerns itself with Chloe, a mid-thirties teaching assistant who just cannot grow up. She wants to be a radical queer playwright, but somehow cocaine binges, vodka, and long nights clubbing leave her without the energy to finish her magnum opus. She has never been in love or even had a girlfriend. The only way she can really connect with people is when she is high. Something in her life needs to shift. But what will ignite the change she wants? What follows the lines of coke?

Recovery from addiction is familiar territory for dramatists and single hander Follow The Lines inhabits a recognisable storyline. Chloe’s inner life is a morass of self-doubt and internalised homophobia which she numbs with horse tranquiliser and Smirnoff. She fluffs her chances with an enthusiastic theatre director by turning up at a 9am call, high from the night before. Valiant attempts at taking weekends off the sniff and booze, or as she labels it “joining the daytime tribe”, end up with the same familiar call to the dealer. She mistakes a sex date with a predatory olive saleswoman for the beginnings of a relationship. It is a slow, excruciatingly accurate comic portrait of someone spiralling into rock bottom. In Chloe’s case this comes with a vomit-covered ejection from a club, with even her friends telling her “fuck Chloe, you’re a mess”.

If the territory is familiar, what marks Follow The Lines out for attention is a truly electrifying performance from Rebecca Pryle (sister of writer Olivia). Her Chloe is a furiously fizzing cauldron of misdirected anger and self-loathing. She hates the cancer that is killing her mother. She despises the yoga tapes she uses to bring her down from partying. She detests the shakes and irregular heartbeats that come with her come-downs. She even hates the middle class farmer’s markets she visits in an attempt to bring meaning to Saturday afternoons. More than anything she dislikes herself. Pryle’s dancing, coke-snorting, gurning, frantic Chloe almost never stops moving. She burns with the kind of visceral dynamic anger that is almost heart-breaking to watch.

Constance Villemot’s set, a floor and backdrop of jagged white strip lights neatly resonates with the endless lines of coke that Chloe consumes. Sassy Clyde’s soundscape, garage music and periodic dream-like audio insets featuring Chloe’s aching inner monologues, is consummate. Olivia Pryle is a clever comic writer and there are elements in Follow The Lines that suggests Chloe’s story is close to home. Sentiments will vary as to the ending she gives her character; some might feel it comes a little too close to a cop out.

Writer: Olivia Pryle

Director: Velenzia Spearpoint