Rita Bratovich’s review of ‘All The Fraudulent Horse Girls’ by playwright Michael Louis Kennedy and director Jessica Arthur at The Old Fitz in Woolloomooloo. How to describe this one-hour, one-act, one hellova crazy play? Well, it’s about an 11-year-old girl, Audrey, who loves horses, has no friends, is telepathically connected to horse-girls across the globe and almost kills a police woman. What it really is is a riotous, sketch-comedy styled play performed by three brilliant actors.
Written by self-proclaimed queer and frenetic playwright, Michael Louis Kennedy, All The Fraudulent Horse Girls is an absurdist, quasi vaudevillian, cute but sometimes melodramatically violent play that gives a brief yet penetrating insight into the mind of a horse-loving pre-teen girl. It is not more than that, and at the same time, it is a bit more than that. Audrey has a complex personality, something that is explored by having three different actors play her.
Shirong Wu introduces us to the character. Wu’s Audrey is animated, boisterous, observative, with a vibrant imagination. She is the most child-like of the three interpretations.
When Audrey is knocked out cold by a horse, Janet Anderson takes over the character in what is clearly a dream-sequence. Audrey is acting out scenes from an American western pulp novel she has been reading. When Audrey wakes up, she is played by Caitlin Amelia Kearney, who sings a beautiful ballad, a dedication to horse-lovers and dreamers everywhere.
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