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Review ArchiVE

Up North

by Pip Hall

directed by Rachel House

Dirty little secrets of pre-DPB days

Reviewed by Lee Matthews for The Manawatu Standard, Monday June 7, 2010

ONE warm summer's night, and life changes, irrevocably.

Maggie's 17 and pregnant. So what?

Hold on, it's 1958 in small-town New Zealand, and that's the end of the world.

She's sent Up North - you were, in those days, sent Up North, Down South, to The Bay, to Australia, anywhere, to get you away from everyone who knew you, away from the disgrace, the shame, the dirty little secret of a bastard baby, born out of wedlock.

So here's Maggie (Chloe Lewer) sent off to Evelyn and Jimmy's farm, miles out in the country. Nobody knows her, nobody's to find out. She's to stay there from before the baby starts to show until after she's got her figure back.

Trouble is, dirty little secrets smear and smudge. They spread. And Evelyn (Kate Louise Elliott) and Jimmy (Matthew Chamberlain) have their own secrets. Evelyn wants a baby and can't have one. Jimmy had a bad war; his brothers were both killed and he had to take up the family farm. He took up the bottle as well. They're both wedged in a life they don't want, miles from nowhere, with small-town, small-minded New Zealand gossiping and judging all round them. Public opinion is the harshest court of all.

It's good, meaty drama, well-written and well performed. There's good acting in this show and nice timing, and some refreshing comic moments to point up the angst. Playwright Pip Hall has dug deep into those pre-DPB days and what goes on the stage is how it was back then. Maggie's an easy slut. Jimmy's a drunkard. Evelyn's the barren witch who can't have children. It's chilling; men's and women's roles were set in concrete, and breaking them required emotional earthquakes. This play provides the necessary shaking.

It builds slowly; initially it looks as if the baby is a fresh new chance and there might be hope and happiness to come. But everyone is lying, and the plot thickens and twists.

The Sean Coyle-designed set's a masterpiece. Everything happens in the kitchen. Mod-cons are a huge, clunking old fridge, and an electric oven. There's no hot tap over the sink. No bathroom, either. But there's a china cabinet which holds all Maggie's and Jimmy's treasures - and the party-line telephone, purveyor of rumour and nasty news. It's a mute, black reminder that out there, somebody is always listening and judging. 

Drama shows pain of 1950s for outcasts

Reviewed by Joan Ford for the Feilding Herald , Thursday 10 June, 2010

Maggie (Chloe Lewer) is 17 years old, unmarried and pregnant.  It is 1958 and her parents send her up north and away from scandal. She is to live with Jimmy and Evelyn (Matthew Chamberlain and Kate Louise Elliott) for the duration of the pregnancy.  They own a farm in the back of beyond. Jimmy’s two brothers were killed in the war, so he’s taken over the family farm. He had dreams to travel and a life that did not include farming. He takes solace in alcohol and the farm is becoming run down. The nearest neighbour is more than five miles away, the picture theatre - 50 miles.

Evelyn desperately wanted a family but has been unable to have children of her own. She hopes a baby will ease the struggle and the loneliness of her life. She busies herself with tasks to avoid dwelling on regrets.

New Zealand in 1958 was the land of plenty as long as you conformed. If you broke the social rules, you were judged and condemned. It was harsh times for those labelled outcasts.  Maggie must wait until the birth and then hand the baby over to the adoption agency.  

It was great to watch and feel the dramatic pauses.  This is not a hurried story. Three lives have a tremendous impact on one another.  Kate Louise Elliott always gives memorable performances, but playing Evelyn, she succeeded in making very sure we felt every tiny gesture she made, warmed at her smiles and shared her tears. She was absolutely terrific. She had two excellent partners to work with and together their story plays on the emotions.  I was oddly pleased there were one or two opening night hiccups, it  gave me time to take in this challenging drama as it slowly unfolded and came to its shocking conclusion.  Remember, New Zealand in 1958 could be very cruel if you were different. Younger audience will be grateful to see how far we have come. This is a wonderful piece of New Zealand drama, take the opportunity to go and see it.

Actors keep balance in period piece

Reviewed by David Collins for The Tribune, June 9, 2010

It's rural New Zealand in the 1950s and Jimmy and Evelyn Davies - an older, childless, couple - have agreed to look after Maggie who unfortunately has found herself in a wee bit of "trouble".

The Davies' farm is an isolated setting in an already isolated town. Interesting though, is how events seem cut off from time as well. For all its real-time action, there's also a sense of timelessness. Maggie's belly getting bigger, and talk of upcoming shearing aside, the passage of days feels like something more seasonal. Not unlike the film, Requiem For A Dream, Up North makes its way from summer to winter. Here though, it's the initial light that Maggie brings into Jimmy's and Evelyn's lives that also leads into descent.

Where this descent ends is perhaps the play's riskiest moment - asking the audience to feel such sympathy for Evelyn despite having witnessed, irrespective of her reasons, some fairly abhorrent behaviour. But kudos for Pip Hall for going there, and more so for Kate Louise Elliott's performance, which takes us to a horrible place before leaving us with a believable moment of hope before the light fades finally to black. Elements you might expect to find aren't present. Apart from a glimpse at a bloddy apron, the farm is absent of any threat or danger. However, considering how the story continues, any tension too heightened would have rung false. To be sure, this effort to write and perform people and events that instead ring true is to be commended.

Up North doesn't seek to climb its way out of darkness like The Raft. Nor is there some central puzzle to solve like An Unseasonable Fall Of Snow. Instead it's the more ambitious choice of a dramatic period piece that nary wavers from the real and naturalistic. While the tightrope act of being emotional without becoming sentimental is certainly precarious at times, the actors for the most part succeed in keeping their balance.

Premiere brings past to life

Reviewed by Richard Mays for The Guardian, June 10, 2010

"The past is a different country; they do things differently there," wrote LP Hartley. Half a century or so ago, young women pregnant out of wedlock were sent "up north".

That hid the embarrassing evidence of immoral conduct, and the young women could avoid disgracing her family, return to her middle class life and start over.

'50s New Zealand is vastly different from today's society.

Rock 'n' roll had only just been invented; the sexual revolution with its changed attitudes to the roles of men and women, and birth control, had yet to happen; distance communication was by shared party-line connected by a manual operator.

The childless Jimmy and Evie Davis are struggling farmers who take in Maggie Duncan, daughter of a well-to-do Christchurch family, and up the duff.

Once the birth is over, the baby will be adopted out, and 17-year-old Maggie (Chloe Lewer) will go back home.

That's the plan, but the presence of the precocious Maggie has profound and lasting repercussions.

Set in the farmhouse kitchen, the first half of this tribute to the '50s "kitchen sink" drama builds slowly. Unspoken dialogue is as important - if not more important - than the spoken. The spaces between the words speak volumes, as Kate Louise Elliott's Evie bustles about preparing a meal and cleaning up. Her husband, returned serviceman Jimmy (Matt Chamberlain), is a reluctant and unsuccessful farmer who takes readily to the bottle.

Neither is living the life they wanted, and it dawns on them both that Maggie's presence offers a gleam of hope.

Neither is living the life they wanted, and it dawns on them both that Maggie's presence offers a gleam of hope.

A little slow to begin with, director Rachel House and her three actors build a breath-stopping tension during the second half. As things reach tipping point, it's Elliott's memorable portrait of a practical and self-contained women on the verge of emotional upheaval that pivots this finely-crafted production.

But even on a set that faithfully recreates the period (except for the wrong-era beer bottles), it's hard not to make contemporary connections. Given the recent Andy Haden/Crusaders/"darkies" furore, the briefly-voiced undercurrents running through Up North make it as relevant and as pertinent as those news headlines.

While the ending has a certain inevitability about it, the outcome is far from predictable, and paying the play actors the compliment of wondering what actually becomes of these characters later in life, comes easily.

Universal and timeless home truths captured en route

Reviewed by John Smythe for Theatreview, 21 June 2010

Girls who ‘went up north for a while’ have been part of New Zealand folk lore for generations.

In 1972 Paul Maunder made a 40-minute Ken Loach-style film for the National Film Unit called Gone Up North For a While (with Paul Holmes as the wannabe ‘easy rider’ who got Denise Maunder’s character ‘up the duff’). Just last year we saw Fiona Samuel’s teleplay A Piece of My Heart (with Annie Whittle, Rena Owen, Emily Barclay and Keisha Castle Hughes), adapted from Renée Taylor’s novel, Does This Make Sense to You? It was 1968 when 17 year old Flora Thornley had an illegitimate child and gave it up for adoption …

Set a decade earlier (1958), Pip Hall’s Up North brings us 17 year-old trainee nurse Maggie from Christchurch, who has been sent up north to have her child and adopt it out. In many ways she is the middle class Pakeha equivalent of Queenie (also 17) in Bruce Mason’s The Pohutukawa Tree (set in the late 1940s), intuitively embracing notions of sexual freedom while nurturing romantic fantasies of nuclear family bliss. 

Are there other Kiwi plays that specifically dramatise the hiding away – ‘up north’ or wherever – of illegitimate births? Given none spring to mind, Hall’s three-hander is a welcome and arguably overdue addition to the lexicon of homegrown plays that capture social mores in transition.

By dropping Maggie into the plain farmhouse of a childless couple struggling to stay solvent in a remote farming community – representing country-wide conservative values – as rock ’n’ roll greases the wheels of change in the city, Hall’s has ensured her play resonates well beyond its immediate confines.

I just wish Sean Coyle’s mostly authentic-looking farm kitchen set had made the dimensions beyond its doorways seem as credible in Centrepoint’s largely excellent premiere production, well directed by Rachel House. (With a back wall that close I’d believe a passage way but not a whole bedroom.)

Chloë Lewer delivers Maggie’s determinedly upbeat and optimistic side with lively assurance and gives us plenty of subtext to read in her reactive moments. She just needs to modulate her tone when in close proximity to her sleeping new-born.

Jimmy, the returned serviceman back on the family farm (his two brothers were killed in Crete), is clearly realised by Matthew Chamberlain. Unable to realise his dream of being a competitive middle distance runner, and possibly firing blanks in the marital bed, he resorts more and more to booze, so his judgement becomes impaired at crucial moments.  

Kate Louise Elliot fully embodies every aspect of Evelyn (Evie), the wife and would-be mother. She compels empathy every step of her way with an exemplary ‘less is more’ performance.

Hall carefully prepares her ground, sows her seeds and spreads the proverbial fertiliser to that what is reaped in the final quarter is richly satisfying. There is dramatic strength in Jimmy being the author of his own misfortunes. As for the final twist, suffice to say it’s one that insists we ask ourselves how we’d feel and what we’d do in such circumstances.

Adhering to the ‘show don’t tell’ rule means the many scenes crafted to dramatise the progression of the three-way relationships are not very conducive to staging requirements like preparing, serving and eating a meal (what hard-working farmer would barely touch his dinner?). And the daily routine of mixed farming – mainly Romney sheep for wool but milking is mentioned a number of times – could be made more present in the action.  

The time-shifts are subtly handled, however, and the central focus is where it should be: on the hearts and minds of lives in transition as they confront the small and monumental things in life.

Up North captures many universal and timeless home truths en route to its dramatic and thought-provoking outcome. Thank goodness we have Centrepoint doing the job that should be the core business of all state-funded theatres. 

From strange to surreal to insane to real

Reviewed by Peter Hawes for Theatreview, 13 June 2010

Spiffing show! Best baby-tale in the last 2000 years. Several of the whining scribblers who also reviewed this play found it ‘slow in the beginning.’ Bollox.

It wasn’t slow at the beginning, it was simply the same pace, at the beginning, as life always was up there in the north and if you think they were going to speed up life just for you, you can go and jump over yourself. The play is about them, not about you, so sit up and shut up or bugger off. And in this wonderful way you are introduced to the environment of up north.

And the speed, or lack of it, of the beginning gives you an opportunity to watch the enactment of those tiny little stories that make up existence: the crate of beer put on the table by him then consigned to the cupboard under the sink by her. In this unmentioned game of – draughts, may we say? – the battle of alcoholism is conducted daily. Or the patting of the hair as the phone is answered – always by her – for the party line up North is the party line. And you stick to it. If you don’t, what happens in this play happens.  

No concessions are made to the audience; you see more on-stage backs in that beginning than you do fronts – why turn round, there’s dozens of people out there you’ve never seen before: townies. Reality is this way, inwards, facing the sink and the oven – or the drinks cabinet.

Habitué of the said cabinet, Mr Davis, later Jimmy and off-stage Matthew Chamberlain, brings admirable coherence to a role which ultimately has him flying every which way. He is a steady drunk, by which I mean he does not fall over at the apogee; neither does he fall to pieces under threat of bankruptcy or prospect of greater things. In other words he doesn’t take the easy way out – and consequently gives a convincing portrayal of a man who doesn’t (or can’t find) the easy way out. Even his drinking can be modulated according to circumstance. 

Chamberlain’s performance – and that of the two women – gives evidence of talent and damn good direction. Anyway, the farm’s going down the dunny cos he’s a lousy farmer, she can’t get a job – presumably because he’s a lousy farmer – logic works like that up north. (I’m extrapolating from identical West Coast experience.) But there may be a way out of the mire...

And the Way skips in. She’s Dorothy on the other side of the rainbow, tripping out of the sepias of the ‘slow beginning’ of the movie and setting the north ablaze with beauty, energy and colour.

So that gets shot of the ‘slow’ critique. The other slight censure was, as murmured in the bar later: “Oh, it was very good... but there was no humour.” BOLLOX! There was no spoken humour, no gags, no “Bunnythorpe! That actor said Bunnythorpe on the stage, ahahahaha!”; no one tries to match, say, Oscar Wilde’s: “You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of Little Nell.” No one says it; the play just brings it about; and your reaction is invited.

It helps to remember that an old King giving his Kingdom to two of his daughters who then boot him off it, is high tragedy, but has the precise architecture of high comedy; tweak the emphasis a bit and you’ve got Lear the knee slapper. And also that the first reliable description of Hell is found in a work called the Divine Comedy.

In that wise, this play is very funny indeed. And it begins immediately, despite the reputedly slow start, when Kate Louise Elliot, one of our very best comediennes, bustles droopily into her kitchen to begin the saddest role of her career: Evelyn from up north.

So where’s the humour? Well, initially in the longdrop. Which, in the dark, Maggie, a newly arrived young pregnant girl has to face (or not face, to be strictly anatomical) for the first time. So she begins the creation of her own Basil Fawlty world in which humour is based on horror – and the wonder of this fine play is that she, like Basil, never ever realises it.

The radiant young Maggie – Chloe Lewer, who really is as beautiful as she (beautifully) acts she is – can save Jimmy and Evelyn Davis’s up north farm with the dues her wealthy parents will pay for the parturition and parking elsewhere of her illegitimate child. The father is David, studying to be a doctor, in love and – we are told with no reason to think otherwise (there are no liars in the play) – prepared to stand by Maggie.

But there is duplicity (lies without words, perhaps, in keeping with the theme of unspoken humour), letters are not sent or delivered. On the other hand sentiment’s warm, grim walls of rustic reserve are broken down: “Mr Davis” becomes Jimmy; her citified, probably demon-infested music is accepted; his whiskey is welcomed. Cajoled by her optimism he will take up running once more, at which he was very good.

Life is good: Evelyn gets a part-time library job; the two pounds a week extra brings the freedom of a parliamentary credit card; chocolate is bought, so are matinee jackets. In a tender moment, the baby is felt to kick for the first time. Yep, it’s a baby with kick is that one.

Act II begins with the nursing of Jimmy’s hand; he has protected Maggie from the erumpent attentions of some young predator, and damaged it: “I just wanted to talk to him, I don’t know why he thought...” She obviously often doesn’t. Jimmy’s noble deed has repercussions: Evelyn loses her job; he cannot shear; the gang’s rates are scandalously high; the bank won’t extend the mortgage; “the price of wool is going through the roof.” We hear the banshee laughter of the Basil Fawltys of the cosmos...

The narrative winds around itself, feeding off its own effects to create more; its thread moves from the strange to the surreal to the insane and inevitably into the last resort of imbalance, the real. There, the second last ‘movement’ is so shattering that it is followed by an empty-stage interlude which extends so long it could easily become a ‘Time for a Capstan’ which they doubtless had in theatres in those days. And it gives you time to ponder the avalanche of incident you have witnessed and suppress incredulous laughter (of the sort generated by the unctuous certainty of funerals).

Then, in the remaining ten minutes you gradually become aware, as does Evelyn, of the last, great joke.

'Promising' rather than fully achieved

Reviewed by John Ross for theatreview, 6 June 2010

Being sent ‘up north’ somewhere used to be what often happened to pregnant teen-age girls so they could have their babies quietly born and adopted out without wrecking their eventual marital prospects, or shaming their families.

Pip Hall’s play is set back in the early 1950s, when social mores were far more conventional, and people existed in far more socially integrated communities, gossipingly aware of each others’ business, than they are nowadays. There’s a downside to both milieus: for ours, ignorance of and indifference to our neighbours.

Locating her play, written in the ‘noughties,’ within a re-creation of the attitudes of New Zealanders in a decade some of us old codgers are still around to remember is a high-risk heroic enterprise on Hall’s part. Mostly, I think, she gets it right, but in some ways her seventeen-year-old character Maggie would be more at home a decade or two later.

Centrepoint’s is the worldwide premiere production of this play, and, for me, Rachel House’s directing is fine, as is the production generally (the rhythms could sometimes benefit, through settling-in), and the performances of all three actors are splendid. Even so, the play itself, despite its very definite merits, is finally ‘promising’ rather than fully achieved.

‘Up north,’ for Maggie, means that she comes to live, for the months of her pregnancy, with a childless farming couple, Jimmy and Evelyn, on a farm ten miles away from the nearest neighbours, and a couple of hours’ driving away from the nearest little town. For a city girl from Christchurch, it’s a hard ask, and hard for them too, to reach some accommodation to having her at close quarters.

Their main contact with the wider world is via a party-line phone. They are well-meaning enough, generally kind, but obedient to the request from her parents (for no given reason) to prevent any communication getting through between her and her boy-friend. So, not entirely kind, or on her side.

This is a drama rather than a comedy. Without giving too much away – about the plot – that is, I think that broadly the first half works well, and establishes the characterisations. In the second half, a kind of ‘Coronation Street syndrome’ kicks in, in that the complications of the plot require the three individuals to conduct themselves in ways that don’t seem readily compatible with these characterisations. Not in that decade anyway.

Maybe I’m slow, but I didn’t ‘get’ the ending. My wife had to explain it to me later. Uh-oh. This is not the fault of the actor playing Evelyn, Kate Louise Elliott, who has to convey a very great deal, in the final sequence, with no words at all. Perhaps it’s because it requires a certain offstage action from Jimmy, when one has presumed that he’s the kind of man who could talk quite eagerly about doing such things, especially when he’s got a few drinks on board, yet will never actually do them.

These whinges about the play, in its present form, notwithstanding, it is indeed an interesting play, and one applauds its being put on. Chloë Lewer makes fine use of her acting-opportunities in conveying the changing moods and mind-states of Maggie, and her body-language and timing are spot-on. Kate Louise Elliott is excellent as Evelyn, the endlessly busy, frustrated farmer’s wife. Matthew Chamberlain does really well as Jimmy the reluctant farmer, going downhill.

Sean Coyle’s set-design with one main room, looks absolutely right, and serves the play admirably, likewise Nathan McKendry’s lighting, and Ian Harman’s costumes.

Manifestly, Pip Hall is on her way as a playwright, and one wishes her well.

roger hall's four flat whites in italy

Directed by Jeff Kingsford-Brown

Italian romp both funny and poignant

Reviewed by Michelle Duff for The Manawatu Standard, Monday April 12, 2010

Take two couples who are virtual strangers and throw them together on a trip to Italy, and there is always going to be potential for hilarity.

But as well as the laughs and misadventures that ensue, in true Roger Hall style this play still has room for a life lesson or two.

Our scene is set by librarian Adrian (Stuart Devenie) who acts as a kind of conduit between the audience and the action. In essence, the story is largely told from his point of view.

He and his wife, the uptight Alison (Catherine Downes) have been busy planning the trip of a lifetime to Italy.

At the last minute, their travel companions pull out leaving their new next-door neighbours, the relaxed and debonair Harry (Greg Johnson) and Judy (Vivien Bell) to take their place.

It's a recipe for disaster, or at least seems to be. But as the action unfolds, it becomes obvious there is more to both couples than meets the eye.

As the mismatched four bumble around Venice, it is quickly established that Harry's roguish charm isn't going to sit well with the anally retentive Alison. Meanwhile, well-dressed Judy is catching Adrian's eye.

And with the intimacy of Italy as the backdrop, Adrian and Alison and forced to confront a tragic moment in their past and face up to the failings of their own relationship.

Johnson is brilliant as brash Kiwi bloke Harry, one-liners rolling off his tongue. Devenie plays dry-witted Adrian to a tee, a gamut of emotions playing out on his face.

Downes is so highly-strung as Alison you just want to slap her out of it, and Bell is perfect as the wry, cougar-like Judy.

The set is simple but well-utilised, with the flip of a chair conjuring both cafe benches and car seats, and vehicles appearing cleverly from the floor.

Amy Tarleton and Ragan Taylor elicit many laughs with their roles, as they swan on stage in different Italian guises. Rip-off merchants, saucy waitresses and Italian royalty are all played with comedic timing.

A sentimental moment for many will be the replay of the 2007 Rugby World Cup match between New Zealand and France, the reactions of these characters mimicking scenes that played out in lounges across the country.

In true Roger Hall style, Four Flat Whites in Italy manages to be both funny and poignant, and the acting cannot be faulted.

Hilarity, nostalgia and great shoes a winning combination

Reviewed by Joan Ford for the Feilding Herald, Thursday April 15, 2010

For some, travelling overseas is a matter of "been there, done that, got the T-shirt, next!" Central for others is the anticipation and planning of a trip; where to go and what to see.

Italy offers so many history, architecture, stunning art, gorgeous food and fashion, and last but certainly not least, Italians.

Roger Hall has penned a wonderful piece of work incorporating observations so poignantly accurate they are heartbreaking, but with plenty of hilarity. For some it will invoke both the happy memories and the horrors of overseas travel.

Hall exposes those little foibles and habits that in close confinement can prove exasperating, and drive one beyond simmering to total boil over.

Stuart Devenie plays Adrian, the retired librarian and Labour supporter. Devenie is simply sublime as he relates the adventures of his once-in-a-lifetime Italian holiday with his wife, Alison, masterfully played by Catherine Downes.

They effortlessly portray a couple who have planned everything down to the last lira. Nothing wrong with that, but best make sure you have the finances and sightseeing sorted with your travelling companions well in advance.

At the last moment, Alison and Adrian's intended travel companions are unable to come. New neighbours Harry (Greg Johnson) and Judy (Vivien Bell) agree to the trip, and are delightful foils to the detailed planning duo.

Harry and Judy are seasoned travellers. They don't take themselves too seriously, support the National Party and are fortunate to have a big budget. They also give a fantastic performance.

The four leads pass the ball back and forth, creating laughter and frustration, but more importantly friendship. They remind the audience that travel is about absorbing everything another part of the world has to offer, and a chance to see not only the locals but relook at ourselves.

Amy Tarleton and Regan Taylor take on numerous Italian roles and are great fun to watch.

The set design by John Hodgkins is very clever and takes us from Venice and an encounter on a gondola, to Florence and Rome via nightmarish ring roads and so much more. And special mention of the absolutely fabulous shoes is due.

Jeff Kingsford-Brown must be delighted with the production. It is a must see!

Italian job a joy to watch

Reviewed by Richard Mays for The Guardian, Thursday April 15, 2010

Alison Quigan once dubbed Roger Hall "the salvation of New Zealand theatre". Not only was his an inspiring act for erstwhile New Zealand playwrights (like her) to follow, but the instances in which Hall's plays have ridden knight errant-like to lift flagging box office receipts at theatres around the country, are innumerable.

More often than not, the profilic Hall manages to put a finger on the pulse of the Kiwi psyche, and in Four Flat Whites in Italy, he has his hands on the carotid. Here entwined are the relationship preoccupations of his 1977 play Middle Age Spread; its sequel 2004's Spreading Out; the OE fascinations of Taking Off - also 2004; along with the sporting obsession that burst forth in his 1996 solo rugby play, C'mon Black.

In the climactic scene, it's almost a case of Hall versus Henry (Graham). Stuart Devenie's Adrian and Greg Johnson's Harry are all but apoplectic in their condemnation of the All Black coach's player rotation policy, as from their rented Tuscan villa they watch the New Zealand side fall to France in the quarter finals of the 2007 Rugby World Cup at Cardiff. With the 2011 event impending, Hall's words come with just a hint of foreboding.

Four Flat Whites also does politics - national as well as social and of course, bedroom. The play revolves around a holiday encounter between two couples. Scrimping librarians Adrian and Alison (Catherine Downes) and up spending their Italian "dream" holiday with free-spending retired plumber Harry and his flamboyantly flirtatious second wife - Vivien Bell's Judy.

Amid the clash of backgrounds, incomes, outlooks, attitudes, educations and lifestyles, there is plenty of opportunity for laughter at and with the characters, as well as appreciating the pathos of its back-story.

Devenie's archly ironic Adrian, who acts as a self-disparaging narrator, is one half of an anally retentive couple, with Downes who has a certain way with a flicked a tea towel, and his joyless uptight walking art encyclopedia and Lonely Planet-guide wife.

As the contrasting couple, an irrepressible Johnson and coquettish Bell show they have both mastered the art of the gradual reveal as their roles morph from bellicose bridge-players into characters with more believable dimensions.

Aside from a slight lull mid second half, the play's series of non-stop scenes flow seamlessly across the stylish imitation marble set with Amy Tarleton and Regan Taylor smartly filling an assortment of cameo Italian characters. Immensely enjoyable.

A hearty season-opener

Reviewed by David Collins for The Tribune, Sunday April 18, 2010

One of the actors after the show half-jokingly described their night as a "$23.50 performance", but I had no doubt what I'd witnessed was worth full price. Storytelling is everywhere here: Adrian's tale of he and wife Alison reluctantly off on holiday to Italy with their new neighbours, Harry and Judy; Alison's iron grip on her Lonely Planet guide - a holiday script she's determined to follow; or near the end with the healing power of stories themselves.

By that end, it felt like a laundry list of great performances. The character of Harry may have had to work to earn Adrian's and Alison's favour, but actor Greg Johnson's brash stylings had him in the audience's good book's right from the start. He was backed up perfectly by Vivien Bell as Judy, who had a rather sweet presence that never became saccharine as her guilt began to reveal itself. While quickly apparent that Catherine Downes' Alison is the most troubled, her regular bouts of wit and sarcasm meant the constant tremor and tension in her voice never threatened to become too much.

As both Adrian and our narrator, Stuart Devenie was brilliant - especially because among the comedy Adrian's snobbish demeanour began to resemble more of a refuge. Finally, as the Italians of a thousand faces, Amy Tarleton and Regan Taylor were just wonderful - not to mention damned funny as anything else happening in the foreground.

It may seem that from some of the descriptions above, this is quite a serious play. Indeed, its central story of two damaged people struggling to recognise their hurt - let alone find some way to relate to each other again - is the main thread, but it's also utterly hilarious throughout. A strong script by Roger Hall, one of the best (and wicked) touches is despite characters' various confessions, their biggest trauma and histrionics are saved for something that doesn't directly affect them (save for Larry's chequebook).

This was a hearty season-opener. When the top comes off the bottle of limoncello at the end of its run, it will be a drink well deserved.

Challenging and rewarding acting roles

Reviewed by John Ross for Theatreview on 12 April, 2010

Highlights: The Blondes and their songs

by Georgia Wood

Directed by Jeff Kingsford-Brown

Gorgeous Georgia goes for gold

Reviewed by David Collin for The Tribune, March 21, 2010

Ask people in the know and they'll tell you I'm not the type of guy who goes for this sort of musical lark. My preference - I say - is for the talky, speechy stuff rather than that other fluff and bubble. Which makes it just that much more infuriating when shows like this one - made up of nothing but songs (with a bit of context/stand-up thrown between them as transition) - do such a good job trying to change my mind.

Performed by Georgia Wood in a smashing sparkly gold outfit, Highlights is a compilation of some of the familiar and memorable songs sung by blonde women, natural or otherwise.

Wood's performance sits in a pleasant limbo of nostalgia and memory. This landscape is built from the likes of Doris Day, Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Agnetha Faltskog (from Abba), Dusty Springfield, Dolly Parton, Debbie Harry, and Etta James. She also includes a couple of tributes to Marilyn Monroe and Madonna.

Despite a smaller crowd at an earlier start time, Wood's commitment was absolute. She may have had to cast her net wide at certain points ("Is there a man with a birthday today? This week? This year?"), but by the time she got to Monroe's I Wanna Be Loved By You a few members of the audience were daring to join in. Also good was how well she used the set, still intact from last year's Ladies For Hire.

It's quickly apparent her voice is strong enough to heft a 747 around, but while she shows plenty of flair and personality during each number, at no time was anything over sung. Her vibrato was perfect and in the end it's impossible to doubt her versatility and skill when handling such a range of musical styles.

One of the Centrepoint people said Wood's act was quite "sound-y". My companion thought she was "subtly beautiful". Both were right, and leaving the theatre I found myself humming one of her songs as I thought about her in that gold dress. Georgia on my mind indeed.

Tribute to les belles blondinis

Reviewed by Richard Mays for The Guardian, Thursday, March 18, 2010

Why do blondes have the letters TGIF written on the in-soles of their shoes? To remind them that Toe Goes In First. I heard that from a brunette. Anyway, blonde jokes have to be short, so men can remember them.

Tall, trim, toned and terrifically tonsilled, Georgia Wood's tribute to iconic 20th century blonde actresses and chanteuses belies the blonde stereotype - mostly.

Ten legendary platinum-pated personalities from stage and screen, plus "black-blonde" Etta James and porcine puppet blonde Miss Piggy appear in this musical pageant of unforgettable songs leavened with anecdote and witticism.

Resplendent in a gold lame evening gown with detachable skirt, Wood begins her story appropriately enough with Doris Day's 1945 hit Sentimental Journey before moving onto the inimitable Mae "Peel Me A Grape" West. A smouldering Falling In Love Again Marlene Dietrich gives way to her much friskier Naughty Lola.

There's an extended Marilyn medley that includes I Wanna Ba Loved By You; Peggy Lee's Fever - including scat singing; a huge open-throated You Don't Have To Say You Love Me from Dusty Springfield, before Wood settles into the country crossover flavours of Dolly Parton.

Ex Playboy Bunny Debby Harry morphs into Material Girl Madonna, and in Thank You For The Music, Wood acknowledges the influence of Abba's blonde, Agnetha Faltskog.

What impresses is the energy Wood pours into each number, managing to recreate the essence of every one of these stars in a well-placed musical memoir that cruises top down from the 1930s into the 1990s.

Wood is a superb hostess, and her show is wonderful fun that no one needs to be blonde to enjoy. You can't really argue with the selection - just a pity there was no John Mitchell, Annie Lennox, or any programme!

Programme liner notes would have been captivating, because Highlights encourages the idea that songs are touchstones which recollect, sort and savour moments in history. The vivacious Wood has done nothing less than capture the sound and heart of a whole lifetime.

Ladies For Hire

by Alison Quigan

Directed by Jeff Kingsford-Brown

Music a Triumph of the Human Spirit

Reviewed by Lee Matthews for the Manawatu Standard, November 9, 2009

Alison’s back. Palmerston North’s favourite playwright – and former Centrepoint Theatre artistic director – has served up the good Christmas bubbly with this one.

 It’s funny and forthright, and the humour has sufficient sting to keep the drama taut. And it’s packed full of Palmy references. Poor old Woodville…

St Mary’s parish has a little choir of ladies who have sung together for years. Members come and go, but its backbone is indomitable, principled Harriet (Helen Moulder). Its newest member is naïve young Shelley (Sarah Graham), just starting at Hairdressing College, fresh from the wilds of Waipukurau and alone and lonely in Palmerston North.

Mary Mac (Jennifer Ludlam) has a mental map of the city and its people that you only get by teaching at the same secondary school for 20-plus years. She’s finding it difficult to adjust to the empty nest, now the kids have gone. The formidably competent and forever flurried Marijke Van Demon (Lyndee-Jane Rutherford) has the opposite problem. A houseful of kids, a son running off the rails and her Dutch mother-in-law about to visit.

Oven inspection, anyone?

The last of the choir is Mary O’Donnell (Kate Louise Elliott) – earthy, sexy, kind; she and her Ray run an auto-wrecking business together.

So Harriet’s keeping the choir firmly in tune ane they’re loving lamingtons and their irreverent comments about brides and bereaveds and they’re just generally being friends forever when in comes pushy young Father Paul (Josh Harriman). He’s a new broom trying to sweep dear old Father Peter (David McKenzie) into retirement with some nasty allegations, and the first thing he does is sack the choir.

Drama is high F! The choir tries to stay together; they book themselves out as Ladies for Hire, offering weekend entertainment. Mmm. There’s a lot of experience expansion involving stag parties and gorilla-grams.

But the song turns sour. Harriet’s made redundant, Ray has a stroke, Marijke’s stinker son does something utterly awful. The choir’s right out of tune. Is this the death march?

Music is a fascinating triumph of human spirit. It creates something bigger than itself; amplification. This choir shows that. The actors’ voices all curl around each other beautifully, and snuggle up to the harmony. They’re worth hearing. (The musical director is Roger Buchanan. He’s done a good job.)

It’s vintage Quigan, it’s something special, and it’s homegrown here in our Palmerston North.

Christmas novelty has edge

Reviewed by Richard Mays for The Guardian, November 12, 2009

On the surface, Ladies For Hire is a characteristic Alison Quigan celebration. It's almost as if she never left Centrepoint. The play has appealing characters entwined in an easily identifiable and understood situation, an obstacle to overcome with a feel-good resolution, some frivolity, a little froth, and a cherry on the top. As popular and as entertaining as this may have proved in the past, five years on Shortland Street have surely and inevitably had an influence.

In Quigan's twelfth play for the theatre and the first since 2004's watershed 30th anniversary season, there is harder social undercurrent. It's a restless unkind world that intrudes through employment and health uncertainty, petty ambition, manipulation, dishonesty, bullying, and sociopathic (P-fulled?) violence.

With their elder patron away on retreat, members of the happy-go-lucky ladies' church choir at St Mary's parish come up against the new order in Father Paul - young ambitious and uncompromising.

They may be volunteers but he unceremoniously sacks them for their disrespectful attitude. However, the girls aren't quite ready to be sacked. Shelley, a young hairdressing student from Waipukurau has only just joined, and they'll really miss Marijke's Dutch home baking.

Mary Mac, veteran chain-smoker and teacher gets the singers some private gigs courtesy of a misleading poster - so there they are outside their comfort zones, performing at a stag do, singing gorillagrams in Woodville, and providing seasonal in-store entertainment. But Mary O's husband and partner in their wrecking company suffers a stroke; choirmaster Harriet is made redundant under stressful circumstances; Father Peter is accused of unspecified impropriety, while Marijke's sullen and increasingly belligerent son Trent, is becoming more and more of a handful, and disturbed by the insinuating allegations against Father Peter she drops away. The approaching Christmas is looking anything but merry.

The strands supporting this play are its believable characters and the relationship that bind them, even if a couple of the story's climatic situations and contrivances test the boundaries of that belief. Its dialogue is laced with quick earthy and ironic wit, especially when delivered by Jennifer Ludlam's wisecracking Mary Mac  - "Marriage is like the Middle East - there is no solution!" And there's the carefully constructed character, poise and accent of Lyndee-Jane Rutherford's Marijke to appreciate.

And through it all, they sing - from high choral to pop ditties and carols - in harmonious expressions of hope, friendship and love on Bruce Graham's and Harvey Taylor's beautifully finished two-tier choir loft-crowned set.

Ladies For Hire is entertainment well in tune with the times as well as with the season.

Priests, ladies and gorillas

Reviewed by David Collin for The Tribune, November 15, 2009

Lean but not thin, Alison Quigan's script and Ladies For Hire as a whole hums along at a good nick. Opening on a choir practice, Shelley (Sarah Graham) arrives for the first time. The other four seasoned veterans of the choir game welcome her to the group without hesitation. As the Dutch Marijke (played with gusto by Lyndee-Jane Rutherford) says, "Et's guud to have somme nuu blood!" and they look forward to their time together. Unfortunately, they haven't counted on the machinations of Father Paul who would love nothing better than to see these irreverent Ladies never step foot in church again.

The play satisfies in its surprises. Not so much in the ending (this is end-of-season fare, after all) but how we get there. Quigan develops the relationships and pushes the story along at the same time - never sacrificing one for the other. The quality of the writing and the performances is reinforced constantly by how characters' choices are often unexpected and engaging, yet completely believable.

While some of the narrative's jumps nearer the end jar a little, there are no tricks here - although you may find yourself reveling in the almost surrealist absurdity of scenes; like the way the show pivots on the interval, turning from choir leader, Harriet's (Helen Moulder) salacious staccato starburst; to two gorillas caught driving with little regard to their cousins whose ancestors at least had the decency to make their way out of the trees.

The ladies of Ladies effortlessly create their Pentumvirate. Indeed, Josh Harriman as Paul has his work cut out for him - as any other actor would against this five - performing soundly when railing (and squirming) against the group. David McKenzie as senior-but-progressive priest Father Peter does well in handling the light and tainted matter that affects his story arc.

The remaining cast - Jennifer Ludlam playing Mary McIntyre, and Kate Louise Elliott playing Mary O'Donnell - are a joy to watch.

Ladies For Hire is a great way to close out a darn good 2009 season. Go see it.

AWHI TAPU

By Albert Belz

Directed by Leo Gene Peters

Resonating Undercurrents

Reviewed for The Guardian by Richard Mays (and published here with permission)

Nuances of meaning abound for Awhi Tapu. It can suggest a sacred bonding, togetherness, or a nesting place - among others. However, in the remote Tuhoe forestry hamlet that bears the name Awhi Tapu, things are far from together. A political decision has closed the Urewera forestry down. Families are leaving; boarded up and abandoned forestry baches can be bought by outsiders for as little as $1000. This is a play that may be leavened with light-hearted and good-natured banter and piss-take, but there is a feral edge and tragic undercurrent to this unusually structured story, staged on a fresh cut wooden platform.

As the play progresses, using a fantasy film scenario based on the past lives of the protagonists as its vehicle, vertical planks of wood are slotted into the stage, gradually boxing in the four actors.

At a loss without the timber industry, the inhabitants of Awhi Tapu join the ranks of the dispossessed, and out of frustration and despondency turn to violence, visions and to fire razing.

Sonny's vision is retrospective and in celluloid. Young, imaginative but naive, and deserted by the mother of his child, the character played sensitively by Scotty Cotter calls the shots of this "movie", which doesn't always go according to expectation. It keeps veering off into "reality", and some of it pretty disturbing.

Raj, a Fijian Indian known as Casper - a joke on his darker skin tone, and played by a lively Ahi Karunaharan, is the unexpected member of this small "hapu", able to bring a refreshing perspective to the themes.

Josephine Stewart-Tewhiu gives a moving portrayal of the vulnerable, fragile and ultimately tragic Girl Girl, who lost the power of speech when her father disappeared into the forest. Her brother is the hoodied, menacing and violent Jack, jailed for smashing a pakeha outsider in an argument over a pub pool game. Maaka Pohatu plays Jack, and Wendyl - a former forestry foreman and now prone to visions connected with the Urewera prophet Rua Kenana.

Pohatu also plays guitar and sings, slapping out verses of reggae tunes by Bob Marley and Kora. Overall, he gives a strong and resonating performance.

In fact, the whole production resonates. Aided by its set and effective lighting, Awhi Tapu is a well-paced compelling piece of storytelling, and though some of the movie voice-over moments are a bit perfunctory, casts a real spell - one as haunting as it is lively.

Performance Effortlessly Draws Audience In

 Reviewed by David Collins for The Tribune, September 6

Near the end of the play, Awhi Tapu, a house burns. Those on stage, held fast by the light and smoke, start to sing.

All of the play is delivered to the audience as one long movie pitch in a compelling limbo that's not quite flashback or present tense. Yet it's here in this moment - as real and mythic story elements catch and burn, climbing high - that the play truly becomes cinematic.

You enter into a silent contract when you watch theatre that everything - whether set, characters, or action - will be accepted as a particular reality. Words and props become transformed into much bigger things and a focus on function over form is something this play does wonderfully: pool balls glimpsed and clicked together in an actor's hands become a game of pool. A mini-stereo begins as a steering wheel, but when the CD tray opens it becomes the entire car.

The best use of this were the planks of wood that get inserted into the stage throughout the story. They are the trees still standing around a town, an echo of its former self when the forestry industry was active; they are the walls of the characters' house, of abandoned buildings, even a prison; finally becoming ghosts tall and ominous, pressing those on stage until all hell breaks loose in a climax that manages to be volatile, yet intimate at the same time.

All four actors revelled in the epth and fun meta-stuff of Albert Belz's script, and it's impossible to single any one actor out. With the exception of Ahi Karunaharan as the cheeky but practical Casper, all switched characters to great effect. Scotty Cotter as Sonny tells the plot of the four's movie. Even if the actors hadn't sung the audience to their seats (with Cotter giving introductions before the play began) his performance made all feel welcomed and effortlessly drawn in.

You could argue Maaka Pohatu as Wendyll and Josephine Stewart-Tewhiu's lovely turn as Girl Girl are the emotional centre - but really all four work together to give Awhi Tapu its heart.

An exceptional show that's wholly recommended.

Powerful, inspired theatre.

Reviewed by Joan Ford for The Feilding Herald, 3 September 2009

Awhi Tapu is a village at the foot of the Urewera ranges. What happens to the people and the memories left behind when a village that relied on the forestry industry closes down?

Set designer Brian King and lighting designer Nathan McKendry produced the most stunning and effective set. The simplicity of its crafting, lighting shadows and ability to allow the actors to build and tear the set around was inspiring with the swiftness of their movement.

Four young people, Sonny, Wendyl, Casper and Girl Girl weave their stories through a working film script that Sonny has devised. He visualizes that it will be a Hollywood blockbuster and that he will be played by Denzel Washington. The play is intricately woven with comedy and huge emotional impact. To borrow a word from the director, it is nothing less than mesmerizing to watch. The four actors worked with enthusiasm, skill and dignity throughout.

Maaka Pohatu was magnificent as Wendyl and two smaller roles that were no less powerful. Scotty Cotter as Sonny effortlessly kept up a cheeky stream of words throughout. Ahi Karunaharan as Casper delivered