Pretentious moi?

These days, when a newspaper blurb tells us that a group of actors have been brought together to mount a play which intends to break artistic boundaries, alarm bells start to ring and most people would decide to give that one a miss.

But be not alarmed, Robert Farquahar's brilliant piece Bad Jazz literally takes the p*** out of that sort of pretentious theatre and all that it claims to stand for.

Bad Jazz is a play within a play. It's a satire of the way of making art that is apparently about the underclass, but is really a piece of exploitative voyeurism.

Its protagonists are Natasha, played by Angelica Coppini, an impressionable young actress, whose introspective gullibility leads her to accept the word of a self-obsessed "guru" director. Well would you perform oral sex onstage, before an audience? The director Gavin, played by Graham Arnold, is everything a director shouldn't be.

He doesn't listen; he rarely ever gives a direct response to a direct question, and he makes an art form of blocking every conversation he takes part in. Keith Pavia plays Danny, another of Gavin's victims.

He's a young actor who tries very hard to be seen to 'get' the creative rubbish Gavin is spouting, but is actually driven more by his desire to keep working than by anything deeper. Also in the cast are David Ellul Mercer, Maxine Calleja Urry and Chris Agius Burke. Direction is by Wesley Ellul.

Bad Jazz will play at the MADC Theatre in Santa Venera from April 18 to 20, then again from April 25 to 27, with a preview night on April 12. Starting time each evening will be 8 p.m.

Tickets may be booked via e-mail from bookings@madc.biz. Or online from www.madc.biz. or by telephone at 2122 4011.