In a historic masonic lodge in Edinburgh’s New Town I find myself raising my hand. The call has gone out for fathers in the audience and I join our hosts, Dick and Dale, along with another volunteer on stage. It’s just us four guys at a campsite, practising trick shots with a baseball, busting some moves and shooting the breeze.
But bubbling underneath is an existential crisis. This is Well-Balanced Dads, from Chicago’s Whisper Theatre Collective, created by Dick and Dale themselves – AKA Richie Schiraldi and Britt Anderson. They’re sporting headbands, bum bags and tank tops blazoned with “Best.
Ever”, each with a different back print – one’s a power drill, the other’s a barbecue. Both have bushy moustaches and they supply us volunteers with our own. There are bursts of classic rock – Foghat, Kenny Loggins, Creedence Clearwater Revival – as we join them on a road trip and other volunteers are cast as hitchhikers.
Fatherhood has given both our hosts a sense of pride and purpose but what happens now their kids have flown the nest, leaving each with just their wives (Mary and, er, Mary) and each other for company? Who is there to appreciate/disdain their dad jokes and dad dancing? We get a lot of both in this highly physical show, which also unexpectedly adds a sensual dads’ dream ballet to the mix, as Dick and Dale take a family-style holiday without the kids in tow.
That means there’s a sweetly melancholic air to these proceedings as the dads play hide and seek, break out their best holiday shirts and end up regressing into children themselves, complete with “are we nearly there yet?” pleas to the hitchhikers. There’s a keen awareness that the Marys usually run the show at home – with the dads packing all the wrong stuff, a bit like when Bandit takes the kids to the pool in Bluey. The audience participation is refreshingly ridicule-free and the central bromance blossoms, filling the room with goodwill.
Individual theatregoers are singled out as legends by the dads for their admirable qualities. Fathers in the audience will feel seen and may well momentarily cringe if, purely by example, they find these dads also bombastically quoting their favourite lines from Gladiator. You too may find something in your eye – surely sawdust or something equally manly – when Dick and Dale open up about how much they miss their kids and give them a call.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
