A Review by Sharmini Jayawardena
10th June 2017
I watched ‘Heroes’, the Awesome play by Gabriel Bergmoser on Thursday 8th June 2017, at Club Voltaire, North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was a treat.
It entertained in its own peculiar way and did more to also keep you thinking long after it was over of how the music world really treats the people who foster it, their fans, and also the musicians themselves. The onus of responsibility placed on the musician to make a go of it; at all costs not withstanding their health itself.
The play opens to this musician Nick who has his bottle of whiskey and glass ready for his fellow band member Shane who drops in for a chat which turns out to be an unpleasant surprise to the surprise of all of us present!
Shane is confronted with Nick’s incessant smoking and his accusations of how Shane has treated one of their fans, Britney, apparently in a bid to further and promote himself as this music idol.
Though at the end of it all it turns out to be something else pointing the finger at the accuser Nick himself who is made to look every bit the hard headed over-reacher.
The play moves to a rhythm of its own almost mimicking a video game of sorts and the underpinning music theme is brought out very nicely in this milieu.
Human frailties and behaviors are all worked out within this framework of the realities facing youth in the world of music and its urgency to make it to the top.
The acting is perfect doing justice to the script itself. Both Nick and Shane were well cast and Shane picks up very well from the robust stance adopted by Nick in the opening scene.
As the play gains momentum it all works out into a very interesting and harmonious well made play.
The only bit of appreciable deviation would have been for Nick to have engaged the audience while in the thick of the dilemma facing Shane’s presumed breach of conduct with regard to the girl.
Had this been the case, it would’ve taken the play away from a well made or realistic drama to that of the post-modern and more topical genre.
The references to Facebook and the ringtone of David Bowie’s Rebel and the opening and closing music also being Bowie’s Heroes added to the play’s more modern aspects which was endearing on the whole. It kept the audience enthralled.
The guitar as a prop and also the smartphone were to the point insinuating the probable sexual theme running concurrent to the greater theme of behavior and conduct. Very nicely done.
The whole experience was one of fulfillment in many ways. 
