[2015140] Dave Bloustien: The Tinder Profile of Dorian Gray
Dave Bloustien @ Producers Warehouse
6:20pm, Tue 10 Mar 2015
After witnessing Dave Bloustien’s solid cold reading in White Rabbit Red Rabbit, and hearing him generate solid laughs from his STI scare story in Darkness and Light, I figured that the least I could do would be to support him at his own show. Sadly, there’s only a handful of other people who’ve turned out, and the Warehouse is not a super-supportive venue with a small crowd.
The Tinder Profile of Dorian Gray deals, in large part, with the emotional turmoil of middle-aged divorce. Bloustien describes the disintegration of his marriage and the resultant impact on his daughter with honesty and – surprisingly – warmth; there’s no conflict sought with his ex-partner, which feels refreshing onstage (and, strangely enough, familiar to me). But heartstrings are tugged when he talks of the impact of his job on his daughter… but there’s always joy to be found, too, as Bloustien lights up when he talks about Skyping with her whilst on road-trips.
Thrust back into singledom, Bloustien also reflects on middle-aged modern dating – leading to a repeat performance of the STI story, which totally stood up. Bloustien also discovered that he has an ability to write female-friendly porn – his strawberry shortcake sample was amazing – and he injected a few tweets from his “ohrotica” nom de plume between stories throughout the show. Despite all the grief that a show about relationship breakdowns and broken hearts and loneliness may evoke, there’s a beautiful upbeat denouement… and I was left with the feeling that everything was going to be alright.
In all fairness, The Tinder Profile of Dorian Gray is less comedy and more autobiographical storytelling… but Bloustien’s narrative chops are excellent, and his pacing is impeccable. When the laughs do hit, they hit hard; and, perhaps most importantly of all, he takes some of the fear out of middle-aged relationship turmoils.
(140) Dave Bloustien- The Tinder Profile of Dorian Gray: Relatable/funny/adorable/scary tales of post-divorce dating. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) March 10, 2015