Getting the grizzle out of the way first, and there’s only one, I promise. The Herald Theatre at the Aotea Centre can be a challenge for us oldies with mobility (read ‘mortality’) issues.

When much younger I called it ‘Mountain Goat Theatre’, now it’s just a challenge to overcome to get to the good stuff, the work.

Stairs managed (surprisingly easily) thanks to the supportive arms of whānau, settling in was an absolute joy and remained so for the 10 minutes before lights down, the 90 minutes of Mr Red Light, the 5 minutes needed to exit after lights up, and the 10 minutes to complete the Nightsong data-gathering survey before disappearing into a crisp, autumnal night.

I loved all of it.

The set – and its many accoutrements – are fabulous.

In fact, everything about Mr Red Light is meticulous. That should be no surprise when you consider the quality team that co-directors Ben Crowder and writer Carl Bland have gathered for the task: Andrew Foster (a set you could live in), John Gibson (delicious sound), Charley Draper (exquisite video), Nik Janiurek (brilliant original lighting design), and Elizabeth Whiting (costumier supreme). All are established figures in their respective fields but with Mr Red Light each has excelled beyond anything I’ve seen them do collectively before. Anyone can get a play on, but it takes genius to create art of this brilliance.

It also takes real theatrical smarts to pull it all seamlessly together and Ben Crowder has long proven himself as good as the very best in the business at embodying the hypercritical audience eye and leaving nothing to chance.

Nightsong was founded by Ben Crowder and Carl Bland, but they had worked together in earlier times. Both are extremely skilled practitioners and together they make theatre that meets their own high expectations. They say they are ‘risk-takers’ whose work ‘pushes boundaries’ and I can assure you that is is exactly what they do. They make intelligent theatre that is both intellectual and accessible – and that’s not easy. They build great teams and that’s not easy either. To do the best, you must work with the best. They aspire to high production values and Mr Red Light ticks all those boxes. Their work ‘excites and surprises audiences’ and my whānau and I are living proof of the transformative nature of their work over many, many years.

I’d also add that the work is courageous, innovative, life changing, and, judging by last night’s full house, it’s popular too.

Nightsong deserves it place as the latest Kiwi theatre company to be welcomed offshore with a tour of top venues in Australia next, hence this short season of Mr Red Light before they head off to Oz on their well-deserved new adventure.

So, what did we experience at the Herald at 6pm on a Sunday in Tāmaki Makaurau?

We received a more than warm welcome to Joker’s Pie Shop.

Joker himself (Angus Stevens) is at work. He leans on the counter reading. He is surrounded by pristine café excellence. It’s as up to date as tomorrow with video clips of the range of pies on offer scrolling on a screen behind him. I am drawn to the mustachioed Billy T offering.

Dinner beckons.

Nothing happens, which is OK because for the rest of the journey plenty does.

Elderly Eva (Jennifer Ludlam) arrives, and the mayhem begins.

To clarify, Mr Red Light is an existential exploration of every individual’s struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity of this unfathomable existence with all its crises, torments, boredom, bravery, and ultimately death. It fits perfectly into the absurdist genre – playwright Bland’s work often does – and sits comfortably alongside the works of Simpson, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Satre, and Camus in its excellence.

Existentialism is often used to reject systematic philosophies but Bland turns this on its head by adopting a systematic philosophy – the conventional western play – as his vehicle to explore understanding where there seems to be none, and in an environment of fervent normalcy – the pie shop. To the existentialist, life lurches from one unpredictable crisis to the next, while, to the absurdist, life has no meaning anyway. Bland (and Crowder) are able to marry these two imponderables into a work of absolute clarity (for us) while presenting their onstage people with an inner narrative that has no obvious happy ending. It could be argued that an existential/absurdist work should not have a happy ending, but Bland says, ‘bugger that, I’ll have one if I want to’ and so he does, while still managing to debate mortality albeit in a pool of (fake) blood.

Or is it tomato sauce.

We see it coming, but when it does, it’s still a shock.

In the spirit of further clarification, the promo material, lifted from the excellent Nightsong website, sets the scene: ‘It’s just another day at the pie shop. Joker is behind the counter. He’s waiting for his first customer. He’s used to waiting. He’s waiting for his own life to start. The first person through the door is Eva. She’s had a long life, lost the love of her life, and in the process lost her love of life. She’s waiting for the inevitable end.’

That’s where we’d got to before the academic took over and felt the need to blather on about existentialism. Sorry about that.

Chrys (Nova Moala-Knox) arrives. The last thing she wants is to be hit on by an unrelenting Joker. She wants to be left alone, ‘but’ the blurb tells us ‘there’s a shadow from her past that never leaves her alone. She’s waiting for that shadow to leave.’

Three solitary strangers, not connecting, alone with their pies.

Mr Red Light (Brayden Cresswell) bursts through the door. He is, he tells us, the unluckiest man on the planet. He’s also the world’s worst bank robber though he does a great job of nicking Joker’s identity. In a stand-off with the cops (the voice of Carl Bland as Trevor) Mr Red Light takes our three strangers’ hostage. As evening falls, he magically converts the pie shop into a forest, an ancient campfire, a posh restaurant, and an ant colony. We meet Bland again. Now he’s an Italian soldier, an ant (of course), and Alan who delivers beverages to the hostages, courtesy of Trevor.

Coals to Newcastle? Yep, there’s a hint of that.

And it’s all part of the police plan to end the standoff that they themselves started.

Mr Red Light inadvertently bonds with the hostages, all buddies now. The pie shop is no longer a place for lost souls, it’s a place where it’s even possible to find your soul mates.

Epiphanies happen, whether we like it or not – Bland’s own voice is powerful here.

So that’s it, the story, but the production is a gazillion times more than that. The set is a character in its own right, as are the pies that scroll across the screen. The external world of ‘Trevor’ is alive with possibility, incompetence, procedure, and Fred and the Trevs live again for more than a joyous moment.

‘If it weren’t for your gumboots.’

Mr Red Light was commissioned by New Zealand Festival and developed with the support of Auckland Live. Bland acknowledges the support of the Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship in the creation of Mr Red Light – good work them. It’s always special to note support for great work especially when it’s of a tangible (dollars and cents) nature

Brayden Cresswell is outstanding as Mr Red Light. His physicality is exceptional, and his comic timing is perfect.

Jennifer Ludlam is timeless as Eva. Yet another role that I will never forget. From Centrepoint in the early days to now, a timeline of ongoing excellence.

Angus Stevens as Joker breaks our hearts with his telling of his backstory. His nickname is/was Mr Red Light but even that is stolen from him. He makes us care, and in the midst of existential chaos, that’s no mean feat.

Nova Moala-Knox as Chrys (Chrysanthemum) reminds me of the women who were there at the birth of punk – Nina Hagen, Poly Styrene, Ari Up, and Palmolive – for whom everything was about surviving in an alien world. Nova is excellent, nuanced, and subtle, a real team player.

Carl Band is simply wonderful – Mr Vulnerability – and his ant brought the house down.

I love getting my family to talk about we’ve just seen. They are often immersed in the experience and have little to say or don’t want to colour my reviewer’s voice. Not so with Mr Red Light. Immersed yes, but excited to talk about a show they had really enjoyed and appreciated which was fabulous for me to hear. Deep understanding and real pleasure. Wonderful stuff for me, of course – experiences spanning 60 years all aligned to call on. One of the many benefits of being in an intergenerational family.

As we sat waiting at the outset, taking in the set and watching Joker reading, I leaned across to my son and whispered, ‘look at Joker’s neon sign’. He replied ‘yep, even the apostrophe is in the right place.’

It’s invariably the little things.

Have a great tour, Nightsong, may it be the start of something really good for you.

You deserve it.

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From the award-winning Nightsong team of writer Carl Bland and director Ben Crowder (Te Pō, 360) comes Mr Red Light, a tragicomic play that is difficult to define in terms of genre. 

From the absurd to the simple: the hilarity, pathos, tension, physical theatre and puns are abundant.

Joker’s pie shop is invaded by the gun-toting Mr Red Light who takes the inhabitants hostage – Eva, an old lady (performed with depth and intensity by Jennifer Ludlam) who has lost the love of her life, a recalcitrant young woman (an aggressively vulnerable Jess Sayer) and the pie shop’s Employee of the Month (a genuine and flirtatious Richard Te Are) also known as Mr Red Light. [More]

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‘Understanding’ may, at first blush, seem an odd theme to explore in an absurdist play. But dramatic energy is generated when a concept is pitted against its opposite (good v bad; sweet v bitter; imprisonment v freedom; identity v nonentity; life v death … etc). So: misunderstanding; miscalculation; confusion; lack of empathy … All these are vitally present in Carl Bland’s Mr Red Light, co-directed by Ben Crowder and Bland for one of New Zealand’s most creative, innovative and treasured independent production companies, Nightsong.

Joker’s Pie Shop is created in impeccable detail by set designer Andrew Foster, abetted by video designer Charley Draper (the two-screen menu and rolling promos are delightfully conceived and executed). The ‘fourth wall’ is literally there (or is it?) in the floor-to-ceiling windows that divide it from the street (in which we sit).  Nik Janiurek’s lighting and John Gibson’s sound designs are destined to kick in with astonishing verve as the forthcoming drama unravels.

This whole environment, with hidden surprises aplenty, will turn out to be as unpredictable a character as any we are about to meet.

Meanwhile all is bright and still, including the sole Joker’s pie shop staff member (Richard Te Are), immersed in a book while nothing happens either inside or out – until the sad old woman we will come to know as Eva (Jennifer Ludlam) shuffles along the pavement trundling her dilapidated shopping trolley. Realising she has over-shot her routine destination, she backtracks to the door. (What if she hadn’t?)

The classical names and imagery of the pies on offer evoke a wealth of stories past. Chat about the book the unnamed Joker’s joker is reading prompts Eva to reveal that a story, for her, is ‘shelter’. Their exchange, like much of the action and inaction to come, is simultaneously mundane yet rich – like a pie, which may look bland (:|) on the outside but burst with untold scrumptiousness when you bite into it.

In total contrast (or is she?), wearing ‘fuck-off’ headphones and just wanting a pie and no chit-chat, Chrys (Jess Sayer) nevertheless feels compelled to challenge Joker (let’s call him that; the programme does) on the sexism inherent in the pie menu. She is singularly uninterested in Joker’s assertion that they have met before. Yet loneliness is beginning to emerge as a common denominator.

These three characters are all clearly delineated and, while diversely idiosyncratic, they are firmly grounded in the real world. The whole dynamic changes with the sudden arrival of a hoodie-hooded, gun-wielding man who has covered his head from the top lip up with a red stocking. This is the eponymous Mr Red Light (Trygve Wakenshaw), so-named for his chronic inability to get a clear run at anything; to get anywhere with his life. In this instance he has botched a bank robbery and is on the run, except he has stopped and is not exactly in hiding: he is on display in the Joker’s window. It is a sticky situation, as evidenced by the noise his shos (but no-one else’s) make as he moves.

This is where the dramatic conventions change, allowing subjective realities and/or fantasies to become manifest while, crucially, the hostage drama plays out with all due threat and jeopardy. Mr Red Light’s clumsiness and ineptitude, exquisitely rendered by this master of physical acting and clowning, only increases the very real sense of danger.

From a distance, behind our privileged position of intimate connection, a Police Hostage Unit negotiator called Trevor (Simon Ferry) plies his craft by amplified voice. And we settle in for the inevitable wait to see whether the criminal’s demand for a getaway van will be met.

I am loath to reveal any more of what actually happens in this sometimes calm yet pressured, increasingly bizarre and momentarily terrifying situation because the unpredictability, twists and surprises have to be experienced first-hand. But in the process we discover more about each character (as you’d expect from the hostage genre) and, unexpectedly, small things loom large as they come into play in the stressed-out minds we’ve tuned into.

To mention Ferry also plays an Italian soldier, an Ant and a reluctant deliverer of demands called Alan, is to hint at some of what transpires. The Ant’s soliloquy (penned and discarded, Carl reveals at the post-show Artist Talk, by his poet-playwright-actor father, Peter Bland) is a gem of poetic insight amid the confusion.

As for the other manifestations, suffice to say they are ingeniously created and activating them keeps the crew – Stage Manager Renaye Tamati; Technical Operator Emma Laverty; Sound Operator Ollivier Bailester – very busy. The skills of Fight Choreographer Alex Holloway also add great value to the show.

Although the characters are relatively isolated, the actors work together as a dynamically integrated ensemble, timing every beat to draw us in and generate our collective responses, be they laughs, gasps or ‘wtf?/omg!’ moments.

Absurdism is relative: it is only so in relation to what we believe is real and reasonable, and there is plenty of that in Mr Red Light. Given the greater understandings we have gained through our venture into the absurd, the ending is not what an empathetic person wants. But it’s all too real and therefore what is needed to snap us out of this dangerously illusory world. Or is it?  

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“How many stories are out there?” asks Eva (pronounced Ever) at the beginning of Carl Bland’s absurd, profound and above all, funny play Mr Red Light. Well I wonder how many stories there are that contain such a bizarre range of characters; that move so quickly from the heights of slapstick ridiculousness to thoughtful insights; that enable an audience to connect both emotionally and intellectually while revelling in the delight of hearing Kiwi accents in a Kiwi context. I would suggest, not many.

Set in a pie shop called Jokers, Mr Red Light brings together four people (five if you count the never-seen hostage negotiator Trevor Edwards brilliantly voiced by Carl Bland himself) who are isolated and disconnected from others. The story starts as a regular customer Eva (Jennifer Ludlam) enters and gets her usual pie order. Jokers employee, Joker (Richard Te Are) is soon distracted when another customer Chrys (Jess Sayer) enters and he realises she is someone he knew in the past and would like to know better. His inept flirting is interrupted by a frenetic Mr Red Light, who proceeds to hold the three of them hostage while trying to negotiate with Police crisis member Trevor Edwards (Carl Bland.) There are guest appearances by a range of other characters – all played by Carl – but I won’t spoil the surprise by naming them.

All performances are strong and cleverly executed. Richard Te Are, is the epitome of retail employee perfection, Jess Sayer is instantly recognisable as a young tortured soul, Carl Bland’s performance changes so completely with each character that it is difficult to remember that they are all played by the same person and Simon Ferry brings us into the manic world of someone who has lost control of their life. However, Jennifer Ludlam’s performance is a master class in how to bring a character alive. From the first agonisingly slow entrance – how long does it take to walk across a stage? – to the last clasping of hands, Jennifer’s performance never falters.

The cast are ably supported by one of the most incredibly detailed sets I have ever seen. Designed by Andrew Foster, most of the stage is taken up by two glass shop fronts, tables, chairs, counter, oven – in fact everything that you would expect to see in a pie café. It is stylish, captivating and manages to feel spacious yet claustrophobic – a juxtaposition that adds to the overall atmosphere of absurdity.  The set dressing is, if possible, even more detailed. From the warmer full of pies and the maneki-neko on the counter (the Japanese good luck cat) to the condiments on the counter, you feel as though you are looking into a real café. Make sure to keep an eye on the electronic screen at the back. The advertisements for the pies are worth checking out.

There are a couple of areas that don’t work as well. The soundscape, designed by John Gibson, is effective in adding to the atmosphere but not so effective in enabling the audience to hear. At times the music playing underneath the characters’ speeches makes deciphering them difficult and at least one of the guest characters is very difficult to understand. There are times when the humour feels a little bit forced and when there is so much going on that the audience is unable to keep up. Also, the nods to the local area (Trevor is the head of the Marlborough Police Crisis team) don’t work here, as a major part of the plot line revolves around red lights. Marlborough is the roundabout capital of NZ, with never a traffic light to be seen!

However, despite such minor issues, directors Ben Crowder and Carl Bland manage a Herculean task. They take a jaded, weary audience on an 85-minute journey through situations that are both believable and, at the same time, unbelievable. They take the paradox at the heart of the story and wring every last drop of humour out of the juxtaposition of the absurd and the sublime.  They celebrate its childishness while polishing its philosophical insights. They delight us with puns which put the best dad jokes to shame and make us reflect on our connection to other people. 

Eva says, “In a story everything is significant.” Everything in this cleverly crafted script is significant and it unfolds in a way that keeps the audience as much of a captive as the hapless hostages themselves.

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My first impressions are off the chart. Nelson’s historic Theatre Royal, the oldest operational wooden theatre in Aotearoa, is no more. In its place an incredibly detailed and life-like pie shop, complete with lit up menu board, a pie warmer with actual pies inside it and all the other bits and bobs you would find in such a joint. I’m excited by the utter transformation of a space I know so well!

The design of this show certainly has a life of its own and is a feature that almost makes me drool with awe. The set is one element of a thoroughly comprehensive, carefully put together feast of props, lighting, sound, video and costume. Surprising, delightful, wonder-ful: Mr Red Light designers – Andrew Foster (set), Elizabeth Whiting (costume), Nik Janiurek (lighting), Charley Draper (video) and John Gibson (sound) – you are masterful and you make this pie shop hostage dramatic farce look and sound so good!

I love the pace of the start; that the directors – Ben Crowder and Carl Bland (playwright) – are confident enough to take their time. I love that the simple shuffled action of an entrance and exit make clear to the audience the rules of the set – namely, where the walls are and where the doors are. From here on, however, I miss something that the appreciative audience around me seems to get. Perhaps that invisible but firmly imagined wall between the actors and the audience becomes a little too real for me. I struggle to connect to the characters. I am quite far back in the auditorium, so perhaps this is contributing to my experience, but from where I am, having that ‘wall’ between us gives the performance a cinematic, removed feel and things that would normally have me crying with laughter, roll past me like tumbleweeds. This is odd.

This production has all the elements of what would normally get a big fat tick from me – great actors (Simon Ferry, Jennifer Ludlam, Richard Te Are, Jess Sayer, Carl Bland), slick tech, interesting ideas, surprise, silliness, fantasy and absurdism, but the glue that holds and elevates these things doesn’t seem to be there on this night.

The exception to this is when the subtly charismatic Carl Bland enters (in multiple roles). The difference is energetic. It is an aliveness that comes through being part of a fantasy, owning your material and sending it out with a confident vibrancy to every reach of your performance space.

Despite my personal inability to connect to the main characters and action of this play, I enjoy the information they reveal about themselves as the story unfolds and the clever ways this happens. A few of the fragments that will stay with me are Eva’s quirky laugh (Ludlam), Chrys’ vulnerability (Sayer), Mr Red Light’s dance moves (Ferry) and high note, Joker’s forest house (Te Are) and, of course, the ant (Bland) and the exploration of scale.

There is a lot of hearty laughter in the theatre, enjoyment of the daft but endearing word-play and a scattered standing ovation at the end. For the majority of the audience I’d say this play gets a very clear green light.

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Mr Red Light is the author of his own inept plot.  

”I don’t have a life,” he says. He never gets the pie he wants, and his name is either hastily invented or stolen. Having taken three people hostage in a pie shop, he’s woefully short of strategy or even motive. What he does have, though, is a gun.

The shop itself is much like any other brightly-lit fast-food outlet, but it can on occasion accommodate other time and space dimensions. Set design by Andrew Foster cleverly gives the audience the impression of watching the action through the shop’s glass exterior wall. [More] 

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Tonight we take shelter in the story of Mr Red Light: the story of a man plagued by bad luck, taking hours to get anywhere because he always hits the red light. Fairly predictably, when he tries to rob a bank it all goes wrong. He ends up in a pie shop with Eva, the Joker and Chrys. 

Trapped together in a hostage situation with tension mounting, things get weird. As things unravel, so does reality. While the characters question the meaning of life and swap identities, the pie shop is visited by an array of creatures including [spoilers averted]. On paper this may sound gimmicky but in actuality it enhances the action of the stage.

The elderly and heartbroken Eva is played with consummate professionalism by Jennifer Ludlam. She inhabits her role completely and seamlessly makes the most of every opportunity to connect with the audience. Her reaction when she [spoiler averted] is exquisite.

The Joker, the original Mr Red Light, is played by Richard Te Are. He creates genuine relationships with the other characters. It is a challenge to pull off a decent-hearted character convincingly, but Te Are does it.

The prickly and defensive Chrys is rescued from becoming a stereotype by the assured skill of Jess Sayer. Her utter vulnerability when [spoiler averted] and her deft timing add fine touches to Chrys.

Simon Ferry plays the hostage-taker, Mr Red Light. He works hard to keep the tension and the pace of the play up. Ferry gives the most wholeheartedly hilarious delivery of the line [spoiler averted] that I have ever heard. His adept physicality while [spoiler averted] has the audience convulsing with laughter.

The playwright, Carl Bland, plays all the other characters. Every single moment Bland is on stage is delightful. Particular highlights would be his adorable performance of Alan and his portrayal of the passion of the [spoiler averted].

As co-directors Ben Crowder and Carl Bland work wonderfully together to create a show that does not hesitate to take its audience from hilarity to spectacle to provocative philosophy and to despair and back before you can catch your breath.

Andrew Foster should be applauded for his set. It is very impressive with both its construction and how it brings to life the concepts thrown at it by Bland’s writing. It would be best viewed in a theatre where the audience is positioned above rather than below the stage. 

One of the hardest things about touring is setting up the tech so that the lighting is timed perfectly and the voices of the actors don’t come across as flat in the sound system. But one of the best things about touring that more people will be able to see this fabulous creation across the whole of New Zealand.

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