Madeline Ann Smith is clearly obsessed with the Wellington suburb of Newtown. But it’s an obsession put to good use in her solo performance Out of a Dark Wood, staged appropriately in the Newtown Community Hall. Her promotional description of what we are about to see as “experimental, folklore-inspired and haunting” is enough to ensure intrigue.

The set boasts an electric guitar, a keyboard, a computer and a backpack placed tellingly front stage– all of which will divulge their relevance during the play. Enter our writer/performer Smith, clad in full-length black, suggestive perhaps of the sombre nature of some of what follows.

She begins with a nostalgic song for Newtown that sets the theme. We are treated to a history of the building we’re in and of the suburb itself. This is done from a script she produces – assuring us that it’s intended! – and that’s more interesting and effective than it sounds.

Are we surprised to hear so much about water? Well, we’re in Wellington, aren’t we? The zoo was once a lake, Newtown a swamp and there are canals – aren’t there? – underneath Kent and Cambridge Terrace. The Māori chief Te Wharepōuri features as does Wakefield (both have streets named after them) and now Smith’s narration veers into the way these two were regarded and how our perceptions of history may be manipulated and sometimes falsified. This theme now predominates and Smith’s manner of handling it is unique.

Straightforward factual recounting is sprinkled with personal history, some of it painful, and its nature signalled by a strident song with Smith accompanying herself on a stridently blue electric guitar. The mood then changes and it’s a lullaby we hear, not to lull us but to introduce a touchingly personal final sequence. Replacing the script as centre of attention is the mysterious backpack, and its contents give rise to a grief-filled dirge.

Out of a Dark Wood gives what its writer promises. It also asks a lot of the audience in terms of attention to detail, appreciation of nuances of tone and especially to ask ourselves where all this is going? The whole story has a dreamlike quality and that’s the best way to regard such a personal presentation of fact and history laced with emotion and nostalgia.

Lighting design is by Jamie Byas and lighting operator is Shelby Allan.

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