I Betty Ya Didn't Know This About Colonial New Zealand

In a word, this production was joyous. As we follow Betty, a cockney household servant falsely accused of the murder of her masters, along the journey of her transportation, we witness her journey all the way to Australia. She then hijacks a boat to plough on to New Zealand, and then back again, and then back again.

Historical accuracy wise, this play was a sham, but that took nothing away from the delightful play of the four actors onstage, as they changed character, and accent (although perhaps unintentionally), and indulged in sing-alongs, great physical work, and even shadow play, making the portrayal of stabbings, society drinks and sneaky make-out sessions all the more hilarious.

The piece, directed by Daniel Pengelly, starred William Duignan, Andrew Paterson, Phoebe Hurst and Jacquie Fee. This incredibly strong cast carried the play through, with delightful ad-libbing such as ‘It’s alright we’ve broken the fourth wall we can all get on with it now,’ and the questioning of the woman next to me with ‘You look comfortable, good on ya.’ With the air of a great improv show, there was delightful interaction between actors, as they deliberately tipped more than the required amount of water on each other to show sea spray, or cut eachothers solos short, all with hearty grins. Extensive corpsing from Hurst did little to break this magic either, but added to the joy of the actors interactions.

The beautiful set was versatile, clever, and smoothly transitioned from shadow screens into the court house, the prison, palace, and boat. The music, although largely borrowed from other great musicals, had original, charming lyrics, with such simple phrases as ‘Let’s be friends, til the very end’, ‘Whistle while you work,’ or my personal favourite, the very inspiring ‘Life could always be worse’. These songs, wonderfully delivered by strong, distinct voices, wove the narrative with high points of joy and camaraderie.

Overall, this was a great example of confident, powerful actors working with great gusto and a brilliant sense of excitement and fun, on a wonderful script. The clever set and endearing story were delightful, but the joy of the evening was wrapped up in the spirit of the show, which was utterly bloody lovely.  

Stages of Fear

Reviewing the four-part-fright-fest.

 

'I Can Hear Them in the Walls,' as performed by Slave Labour Productions, aimed to frighten. A strong female lead kept up interest, but other than that the piece was a little full, and occasionally comical. We are so desensitized to the terror of unusual psychologies and scary rodents, that it would be quite the feat to pull off a production with a Freudian psychiatrist examining a woman who is terrified of a ‘rat king’, i.e. lots of little rats hanging out in a big squidgy pile. Although the tension in the lead actress’s body communicated sheer terror, the entire narrative of the piece, combined with a comically dated psychological perspective, was ineffective. I was never frightened, never engaged, and found the revelation of the traumatic past of the patient to be predictable. Frankly, I expected it to be far more horrific. Clever lighting and sinister make-up made the piece visually exciting, but it was never effectively scary.

UNDERGROWTH by Pat-A-Cake Productions however, was bloody terrifying. This was a piece that did exactly what I love theatre to do – it left me speechless and sputtering poorly formed sentences for about five minutes after it had finished. Beautifully devised, I have never been so frightened in a production. UNDERGROWTH worked on very immediate adrenalin-inspiring levels, and also on a far more poetic metaphoric level. A particular highlight was the visual of watching McLeod struggle with himself while reaching for a bottle; as well as heart wrenching visual this only spoke volumes of the imprisoning nature of addiction. Another was watching Tuck and another actress seemingly tied together in the middle of the stage, as Tuck frantically tried to comfort her through reminiscing about a day in the sun; watching them dragged apart purely by their own movement was terrifying, but it also communicated the frantic nature of comforting someone about to die. That was why this production as so effective in inspiring fear, we were shown awful images, creatures crawling backwards towards us in the dark, women callously self-abusing, another being beaten relentlessly by her assumed partner, and yet it was really terrifying when it focused around something startlingly human and familiar – it communicated themes of alcohol abuse, addiction, obsessive compulsive behaviours, self-abuse and domestic violence, with barely any dialogue. It is an absolute commendation to the actors and director/writer involved that I was physically squirming in my seat during their performance, hand on mouth trying not to audibly gasp or cry.

 

Making Friends Collective’s piece was heart-shatteringly poor. Ineffective, unnatural blocking combined with a narrative no-one within the production or the audience cared about made for a thoroughly domestic production. The twist was confusing, sudden, uninteresting, and two seconds before the drop of the lights, giving it no satisfactory time to be played out with consequences. It was one of the productions where you spend the whole time saying to yourself ‘There’s no bloody way anyone would do that,’ ‘The police would already be there by now’ and ‘Yeah sure, if there are cops on the way you’re definitely going to kill the cop aren’t you’. The confusing justification for the murders was some vague story about a ‘hole’ in the basement to feed. Whether this was metaphor for some dark desire of the wife, or whether there really was a giant man-eating hole in the basement, (represented by a stage door lit by a red lamp), was unimportant, because we did not find out enough about it to care whether it was real. The somewhat terrifying idea of a flesh-hungry black hole was domesticated to seeming rather tame. I was mostly not very scared, and really just wanted to throw some real agent agents number at them and tell them to bloody cut and run. Suck it up and move house.

 

my accomplice’s production was one of the strongest of the night, but not for inspiring fear. This monologue delivered by Hannah Banks outlined a day in the life of, well, pretty much everyone. It was carefully crafted, beautifully delivered, and spoke to the universal fears of everyday interactions, from strangers on the bus to dark shadows on the walk home. It didn’t inspire fear at all, but instead a sense of warmth and familiarity, because it’s freeing to have your personal and private fears universalized on stage.