When in doubt, consider the title. Hmm. OK …. Umm …

Next, check the publicity promise – does it live up to its hype?

Yes, three Toi Whakaari graduates, with “a broken compass” do offer “a concoction of dry depressing drama, nonsensical comedy and potent physical theatre,” which they themselves call a “disastrous journey [that] will connect your dearest friends and most hated foes with a reason to laugh together.”

There is no doubt Brett Taefu, Caleb Teaupa and Seiyan Thompson-Tonga (also credited as Director) have talent to burn, individually and as an ensemble. D’ Things N Such may be seen as their ‘calling cards’; their general audition to the world beyond Toi Whakaari.

I’m guessing they discovered, after lots of workshop devising, they only had 35 minutes of performance material, and that’s why they pad the first 15 minutes with repetitive projections of them ‘being’ various ways in various locations (Sound & AV Designer: Kaisa Fa’atui). This has the odd effect of our getting a thrill when the ‘stars’ of those screens romp onto the stage in real life! (Lighting Designer & Operator: Isadora Lao.)

With most skits/ beats/ sequences arising from theatre games with random provocations and disruptions, it may be seen as a de-tox from their three years at Toi. I also get whiffs of their liberation from toxic masculinity – if not their own, then from elements of the worlds they grew up in or maybe aspired to once. That’s a maybe/maybe not. There’s plenty of time to muse on such things as they strut their stuff.

I won’t try to summarise the content. We are free to make what we like of each idea they play out and riff on. OK, for one example, then, there’s the bit where they’re in a car – left-hand-drive, for some reason – at a Maccas Drive-Thru, and ordering stuff becomes an ever-escalating competition. Tragically funny – although it does become predictable.

If there is a through-theme, it’s about their innate need to compete counterpointed by their wondrous capacity to create stuff together. That could be what saves it from adding up to less than the sum of its parts.

Except there’s also the bit where Caleb can’t cope with the way Brett and Seiyan are quietly working to support each other to be themselves without fear, judgement or shame. We get the space to decide whether to laugh at the new-agey jargon or feel compassion for Caleb’s (in character) compulsion to ridicule them; at his inability to own his own vulnerablility. Like many of the pieces, it starts well, becomes quite engrossing but doesn’t have much of a pay-off.

Maybe the material has the potential to develop into something more cohesive, with a structure that renders it more satisfying to a general theatre audience. Is it fair to suggest, in its current state, it’s three actors in search of a playwright? Or is that too prescriptive about what a show should be?

Brett Taefu, Caleb Teaupa and Seiyan Thompson-Tonga certainly have the stage charisma to earn our trust and keep us interested in what they are doing. I’ll be looking out for those names in future stage or screen credits.

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