Pedal Pusher@Zoo Roxy

 

Pedal Pusher tells the true story of three cyclists—Lance Armstrong, Marcos Pantani and Jan Ullrich—battling to win the Tour de France, in 1998 and 1999 (the year that began Armstrong’s winning streak of seven consecutive years). But the play isn’t just about the Tour de France: it’s about being a professional athlete, and the extreme dedication and sacrifice that demands—to the extent of taking drugs that threaten your life.

Pedal Pusher could be fascinating if it examined this theme on a deeper, more personal level: if the actors had monologues revealing what drove them to act the way they did, how they felt about it, how it affected their lives. However, because Theatre Delicatessen aimed to recreate actual press conferences and interactions between the competitors as accurately as possible, by drawing on interviews, archive footage and news reports, the script is devoid of any speculative private thoughts, any glimpses into the feelings of the three men. They’re either rattling off prepared statements for the press or throwing calculated barbs at one another, making the play feel superficial and cold.

The script suffers from too many melodramatic, formulated lines, such as “Cycling is what has made me great—but it is what has made me suffer”, and the actors—with the exception of Tom Daplyn—frequently stumble over the words.

The clear highlights of the play are the race sequences. The actors creatively transform simple props—a few chairs and some metal gates—into the cycles, the route and the obstacles. To keep it interesting, they use the props and the space differently for each different race. However, with the sequence of race, press conference and short interaction between competitors repeating itself many times, with only slight variation, the play drags on for far too long, without saying much at all.