Review: Stationary Excess, Underbelly

Written for Culture Wars

Jessica Latowicki’s feet are spinning like whirligigs beneath her. Her hair catches her face as often as her dress strap slips off her shoulder. She gulps at the air, grits her teeth and grips the handlebars until her knuckles whiten. Pedalling with a manic desperation, it’s as if she’s trying to uproot the exercise bike – an instrument of Tarturan torture – from its bolts. It’s exhausting, endless and entirely futile.

As if that weren’t enough, it’s all washed down with a bottle of champagne, which is itself soaked up with an entire packet of digestive biscuits. All by 11.45 in the morning.

This, Latowicki and her co-writer Tim Cowbury would have us believe, is the ride of your life. Their text, largely a cleverly-constructed and well-concealed portrait of Superman, rails against the pressures of the capitalist ideal. As an argument – even as a metaphor – it’s as familiar as a proverb: ‘we work for money for stuff for appearances for what exactly?’ You’ve heard it before, I’ve heard it before and, yet, on we all cycle.

That said, the pair carry it off with a rare neatness. Latowicki, gutsy and sincere throughout, dolls herself up, only to undo the look with the champagne, the heady effects of which are later cancelled out by the biscuits. It’s imagery of the roaring twenties, nuclear wives and dotty cat-loving neighbours is astutely all-American: Hollywood staples subverted. But most estimable is Stationary Excess’s grip of its own reality. When the bell forces Latowicki back into speed mode, her struggle hits you hard. There’s an urge to relieve her of the duty, to reassure her that it’s alright, that she needn’t go through all that for our benefit. (Interestingly, were she male, I doubt we’d care a jot.)

Only, of course, we don’t – we watch: half amused by the fruitless indignity, half horrified by it. We let her cycle on, applaud her efforts, and then return to the saddles of our own lives. Let’s face it; Stationary Excess won’t change anything. It’s worthy, I’m just not convinced it’s worthwhile.