Billy Sedoza is a gay funeral director with a touch of flair, who else would have Pistachio the Elephant lower his zoo keeper into his grave? His flamboyance comes from his love of movies and his sense of style. When Billy finds out about the death of his father, he returns to Mexico to face the demons of his past and find the truth about his origin.

The opening scene of this play starts with Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ blaring and Billy on his knees at the front of the stage. The stage is simple with little in the way of furniture other than six fluorescent light tubes in three different colours. Light is used to create the variety of scenes and it works well. We are taken on a journey through his life and loves before the tale of his father and the trip to Mexico takes place. This one man show takes a light hearted comedic view of the world and doesn’t worry too much about the detail.

While the plot does have a number of impressive one liners and good comedic moments, it fails to build on these and is quite uneven. The performance of young actor Kieran Roche is admirable though and he demands the attention of the audience. The large blocks of texts are delivered at break neck pace and he creates the character of Billy and the various other characters with style. The Bear’s Tuxedo runs at Theatre Upstairs until Saturday Nov 16th.

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Keith James Walker

PERFORMED BY: Kieran Roche

PRODUCED BY: Rex Ryan & Ashleigh Dorrell

SET DESIGN BY: Rex Ryan & Ashleigh Dorrell

LIGHTING DESIGN BY: Eoghan Carrik

DATES / TIMES:

Tuesday, November 5th – Saturday, November 16th

1PM PERFORMANCES: Tuesday – Saturday (both weeks)

7PM PERFORMANCES: Thursday – Saturday (both weeks)