The twist in Gary Henderson’s short 1998 mystery is just the right level of difficult: it’s solvable but hard enough that you’ll feel pleased you got it, with the help of some cleverly-spaced clues. On opening night, the solution was revealed earlier than the script indicates, possibly deliberately; this focussed attention on the second-half debate about moral responsibility. 

With slicked ash-blond hair, pin-stripe blue shirt and drawn demeanour, Michael Hurst as Arthur looks like an inspector in a Scandinavian detective novel. But all is not as it seems; for one, he and his young interviewee, Liam (Ryan Richards), are speaking about Wellington. 

This is an interrogation … [More]

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This one-act mystery play by celebrated Kiwi playwright Gary Henderson, written in 1998, is an intriguing psychological study of the innermost private depths of the human condition, as mysteries often are.  Precisely ‘what is this mystery?’ is the initial overriding mystery:  a defensive young man is being interrogated by an officious investigator about a serious incident the previous night. But why? 

That’s almost all one can reveal of the plot to readers intending to see the play themselves. Not that the element of surprise is all the tight ‘Chandler-meets-Pinter-in-late-20^th-century-Wellington’ production has going for it.  Along the way it probes uncomfortably into the mind of anyone who has ever felt defeated or ‘written off’ – pretty much everyone in other words.  It is not unseasoned with humour either, acerbic and cynical as it is, perhaps inevitably given the scenario … But I’m saying too much again. 

Production designer Ben Anderson’s noteworthy set provides an up-front sense that things are not as you might expect, let alone what they seem.  A single light bulb hangs centre stage.  Partly papered, partly black walls are stacked to the ceiling with clerical boxes; unremarkable furniture sits on a half-tiled white floor exposing black polythene underneath.  My initial impression is that reality is either crumbling, or else perhaps clashing with another conflicting reality, metaphorically or otherwise. 

Arthur (Michael Hurst), a clean-cut, white-collar, middle-management type is onstage as we enter, his browbeaten countenance belying the confident air of authority he expresses when engaging with his interview subject.  Hurst maintains an impressive degree of truth in his portrayal of Arthur, given the various revelations of his own background and motivations that arise throughout the play.

Arriving through the same door we entered in, Liam (Ryan Richards) is a nervous young man, short spoken, confused, frank but guarded.  The stiffness of his demeanour is for the most part very well pitched, affirming his rather repressed nature, while his pivotal outburst later on, after his defences have been broken down, don’t reach the cathartic depth the script demands.

Intriguing and thought-provoking as the performance is, I am engaged and inspired by its poignancy while falling short of being emotionally moved as such.  In part Henderson’s very clever, deceptively poetic script may be a barrier to imbuing the audience with the emotional depths the characters reach.  Challenging, but surely not insurmountable.

Overall however, director Matt Baker and his small cast have taken a classically simple approach to staging Henderson’s multi-layered script, to good effect.  What seems at first a simple scenario quickly becomes a convoluted puzzle, while – again without giving too much away – the underlying motives of those involved are their simple, inescapable human needs and desires. 

The costumes – Arthur’s ironed suit and Liam’s smartish-casual jeans and grey jacket – are perfectly unexceptional in style, reflecting the muted blandness of their respective existences, despite the emerging details of two very different lives.  Beside the semi-abstract walls and floor of the set, the props too – file folders, phonebook, coffee pot and cups – are seemingly as typical and prosaic as possible.

Among other detailed aspects of humanity addressed, the script gives one pause to consider certain words we use freely in certain contexts, unaware of any potential ambiguity or misconstruction it may hold, a case in point being the meaning of the word ‘guilt’, which Arthur raises during his confrontational barrage of inquiry.

There are many more aspects of An Unseasonable Fall of Snow surrounding the play’s events and their associated significance that warrant further discussion.  Said discussion, however, is the privileged domain of people who have seen the play, or at the very least read it.  Twelve hours later, I’m still filling in certain details of what the hell happened in my own mind. 

Recently I saw a 1960 newsreel reporting on the publicity for the original release of Hitchcock’s Psycho, whereby patrons were told they must watch the play from the beginning (latecomers were not admitted) and implored not to divulge its secrets to persons who hadn’t yet seen it.  For more than simple entertainment reasons, the same principle definitely applies to this production, hence the ingenious decision to hand out programmes to the audience as they exit so that the issues revealed in the play can be addressed by the director in the programme’s text without spoilage.

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