Casey Filips as Tobias Finley-Fraser in Virtuoso
It’s better to try and fail than to never try at all. Or is it? Perhaps we should ask Tobias Finley-Fraser, the character under the spotlight in comedian and actor Casey Filips’ comedy festival show Virtuoso.
Tobias is a hapless, delusional, and at times plainly desperate out-of-work actor. To some extent, it’s easy to relate: haven’t we all got delusions of grandeur and abandoned dreams lurking in our personal histories? But Virtuoso gets its momentum from Tobias’ refusal to acknowledge years of rejection as evidence of personal or professional failure.
For the show’s hour-long duration, the audience members become casting directors as Tobias engages in an increasingly maniacal attempt at landing a role despite 300-plus previous snubbings.
Filips has fun leaning in to Tobias’ eccentricities, flipping from cocaine-brain displays of confidence to huffing defensiveness and hysterical pleas for acceptance.
He’s in his element in the show’s early stages, standing centre stage and rattling off Tobias’ career achievements to date, which include dozens of years spent learning nothing in various drama schools, and copping many less-than-flattering reviews, which have been doctored and printed onto A3 placards for all to see.
But Virtuoso is an unpredictable beast and the show gains its distinction from the incorporation of improv, audience participation and absurdist theatre. The audience input is particularly significant – while Filips and his team have sculpted a very organised narrative arc, the attitude and creative audacity of the audience could easily lead Virtuoso to take on a different complexion from night to night.
But Tobias’ hunger for visibility is imperishable, and the character’s crazed intensity carries on to the end. It might be overbearing if Virtuoso wasn’t so delightfully funny.
Casey Filips’ Virtuoso runs as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the Melb Town Hall – Lunch Room until Sun 20 April. Details here.
