Typeface

Fringe Bar, Cnr Cuba & Vivian, Wellington

22/02/2011 - 26/02/2011

Production Details



‘Typeface’ is a one-woman play about the tale of a lonely temp who notices resemblances between computer fonts and her fellow office workers. 

‘Typeface’ will make you laugh – as you will undoubtedly begin to see similarities to the people in your own lives – but also may make you shed a tear as the story of her isolation unfolds. 

Event dates 
22 Feb 7:00pm (Tue)
23 Feb 7:00pm (Wed)
24 Feb 7:00pm (Thu)
25 Feb 7:00pm (Fri)
26 Feb 7:00pm (Sat)

Prices 
Full $12.00
Concession $10.00
Fringe Addict Card Holder $9.00 




30 mins

Nice observations but hard to empathise

Review by Helen Sims 24th Feb 2011

Ever wondered what the ear phone wearing word processor is thinking? Writer and performer Angeline Andrews has and it led her to pen Typeface, a short one woman play about a lone audio-typist. The typist in Typeface amuses herself by comparing her co-workers, who largely ignore her it seems, to different fonts.

The staging of the show is simple, with Andrews seated behind a cheap desk with a laptop and headphones. Her typing is projected on a screen behind her, and Andrews does not move from behind the desk for the thirty minutes or so of the performance. Visually, the play is quite static and therefore comes to depend on the writing and Andrews’ skill in delivering it.

Andrews is clearly interested in the details of people’s lives, rather than the big picture, although an overly profound attempt is made later in the piece to extrapolate the theme into a broader musing on the changes in human communication habits. There are some very nice observations and sharp turns of phrase, showing that Andrews is a promising writer of comedic material.

Andrews is also an engaging enough performer, but the material is ultimately too thin to sustain interest. The structure of the show also gets far too repetitive – about ten times over we get a brief description of a co-worker, an office trope, and then they are assigned a font. The show doesn’t actually move to subvert these stereotypes, which would produce more comedic depth.

Ultimately, it’s hard to empathise with a character that seems to have just spent too much time thinking about fonts. 
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