Review from the West Australian's theatre critic David Zampatti
Thursday 31 January
The Fringe has thrown up its first surprise for me, an idiosyncratic and ultimately moving slice of life called Inside the Cup by Seattle performer Aaron Pitre (at the Bok Choy Ballroom until February 10).
I say ultimately,
because at first glance, and for the first part of the performance, it’s hard
to know what you’ve got yourself in for.
Pitre plays nine
characters, all employees of the Cosmo’s Coffee Cup chain of cafés. It’s
Starbucks, of course, and the first person we meet, Cosmo Schwartz, is a thinly
disguised Howard Schultz, the gargantuan coffee chain’s iconic leader.
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| Aaron Pitre |
Now here’s an irony.
For seven years, the President of Starbucks International, the man responsible
for rolling its coffee out across the globe, was a West Australian, Peter
Maslen. About the only country where Maslen and Starbucks failed to take hold
was his own.
That irony is
self-evident as Pitre plays through his stories. Australians don’t get the
Cosmo’s/Starbucks thing, don’t understand the appeal of the product or the
corporate and employment philosophy behind it – it’s alien to us, and, as a
result, the stories Pitre tells initially seem artificial and parodic. It’s
only as they unfold that you begin to realise how close to the truth they actually
are.
The guy with two
postgraduate degrees who can’t get a job, except at Cosmo’s. The young,
transgender Patrick/ Pepper who finds shelter as well as employment at the
café; the tough New Yorker and gay Southerner who fight for their dignity from
behind the counter; the migrant Indian doctor, unable to practice medicine in
America, who works for Cosmo’s because of its health plan (Starbucks are famously
one of the very few organisations in the US with a decent health insurance for
low-paid and casual workers).
Suddenly, Pitre’s
stories aren’t schmucky at all; they overflow with life and courage, and the
extraordinary drive and optimism that is their exceptional country’s greatest
asset.
This is an unusual
piece, even for a fringe, and not everyone will want to stay its two-hour
distance, but it’s got some valuable stories to tell, and some real things to
say.
