Diagnosis, written by B.C. Thomson

Best Drama Script
The Mooncake and the Kumara, written by Keil McNaughton and Mei-Lin Hansen

Best Director
Cameron Rhodesfor Diagnosis

Best Actor:
Mark Scott for Uncomfortable Silences

Best Actor Runner Up:
Gary Young for The Mooncake and the Kumara

Best Actress
Bronwyn Bradley for Diagnosis

Best Actress Runner Up:
Josephine Stewart-Tewhiu for Tipping Point

Best New Talent
Chloe Lewer for acting in 10,000 cigarettes and Wild Things

Best Independent Theatre Company
The Oryza Foundation for the Asian Performing Arts for The Mooncake and the Kumara

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This being the last review for the Short + Sweet 2010 festival of plays, I would like to take the opportunity to say that, as a festival, as an idea, as a thing to do on an evening or afternoon, as an example of talent and of unearthing gems, as a place to be in the dark surrounded by potential, the Short + Sweet Festival is a perfect example. Its apotheosis is reached at the Gala Finale tonight (Sun 31 Jan) and I would urge you to be there, where all the best of the best (and when it was good it was brilliant) will compete for the title of ‘winner’.

[Note: There were only 9 entries in Wildcard Show 1]

10. Native Speaker
This Pinkerton Syndrome play is about a non-Caucasian who applies for a job as a native speaker. However, the interviewer claims that the position is filled. The applicant believes that he isn’t being hired for some other reason until the world gets turned upside down.
ITC : The Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts
Writer: Dean Lundquist (Singapore)
Director: Jenni Heka
Cast: Leand Macadaan (Applicant); James Wenley (Office Worker)

Whilst racism no doubt lurks beneath failed job applications left right and centre, Native Speaker fails to lampoon the tragic comedy of persons stupid enough to judge aptitude by origin. The attempt is worthwhile but the script is circular and doesn’t reach the real pith of this subject.

That circularity could have been intentional, however, as Native Speaker does a good job of portraying the underlying stupidity and irrational nature of the racist philosophy (is that an oxymoron?) by showing how simple the volley of words would have to be in such an argument. Where reason isn’t employed it really is all about ‘no I didn’t’ and ‘yes you did’.

11. Introducing Anna
s/w/f looking for work/love. Bubbly. Empathetic. A good listener. No weirdos plse.
ITC : Impi Theatre Company
Writer: Robyn Paterson (Auckland)
Director: Patricia Phelan
Character: Robyn Paterson (Anna)

Single White Female meets Australian meter maid and becomes a prostitute: Anna is all this and more. Touching on the established goldmine of comedic and emotional content that comes with looking deeply into the thoughts and feelings of someone who sells their body for sex, Introducing Anna, whilst not doing anything new, still manages to be a story about the loneliness that looking for love in all the wrong places can conjure.

Written & acted by Robyn Paterson, this is a very strong one-woman play that fits the format perfectly.

12. Sit Down Please
When this thing called life welcomes so called friends into our world of wonderful we realise that our wonderful isn’t quite as wonderful as we wished.
ITC : Brick Wall Theatre
Writer: Daryl Wrightson (Auckland)
Director: Chris Neels
Cast: Daryl Wrightson (man); Ashleigh Ogden (women)

This plays explanation of itself is just as confusing as the play. As I walked into the theatre I noticed a sign (because it was next to my favourite sign: ‘The Crying Room’ how utterly beautiful is that?) which said “In today’s performance there will be the sound of a gun shot” and I wandered off into a fantastic tangent about some unsuspecting visiting Vietnam VET experiencing flashbacks or a refugee cowering under the Herald’s flap up, flap down seats – but the gunshot came as part of the confusion in Sit Down Please and there were no casualties aside from coherency.

Sit Down Please is somewhere between the horror film The Wicker Man and Spike Milligan’s Bad Jelly the Witch. With all the distraction and insanity it’s hard to see clearly. There is no plot, except in the way your dreams have a plot in that they happen and then they stop happening. The downright oddity of it all has integrity, though the discombobulation would be more effective if it had a point.

Crazy only really works when paralleled with at least a touch of lucidity so we have a spectrum to use when deciding how mad we really are.

13. Breathe
There is a place where you can always be alone, where you have the time to contemplate the mysteries of life and reflect on just how you are handling your little corner of the world. And sometimes it’s the only place you can retreat to when you are different. At least there, there is no one to contradict you. All the objects one clings to for fear of really connecting with another are stripped away, leaving only a son and his father, and the stupid, irrevocable distance between them, that should never have been there in the first place.
ITC : The Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts
Director: Simon Zhou
Writer: Sui-Jim Ho (Malaysia)
Cast: Peter Huang (Son)

Breath is a wake; it’s a speech never made at a funeral never attended. It is about frustration and misunderstandings and the fraught relationship between father and son. However the piece is not believable; it does not inspire us to suspend disbelief; it is not raw enough to do so and there is a failed mixture of comedy and sadness that limits its potential. One minute the son is flippant, the next ready to die, which is a little untenable.

As an idea it has merits and it works well within the format of Short + Sweet however it would have benefited from a more shambled performance with more emotional vulnerability in both the acting and the scripting.

14. The Robbery
A first-time robber attempts to hold up a butcher shop with a sawn-off shotgun, but the butcher, his assistant, and the customer happen to be experts when it comes to robbery, felon psychology, and firearms.
Writers: Kay Wall & Denise Keay (Wellington)
Director: Tim George
Cast: Matthew Norton (The Butcher); Jennifer Clamp (His Assistant); Tim Hammersley (The Robber); Ruth Wynne (The Customer)

The staff of a butchery apprehend an unwitting robber, not with a gun but with pure, raw, condescension. Great.

The script for this, written by Kay Wall and Denise Keay, is fantastic. It is concise and clever and draws on ordinary people who might just, out of sheer obstinacy, be able to talk a robber out of robbing them.

Unfortunately the acting in this leaves almost everything up to the script (and words alone aren’t enough when it comes to theatre), with the notable exceptions of Ruth Wynne who plays a canny customer who knows a hell of a lot about guns, and the bungling robber, played by Tim Hammersley, who carries off ‘harried’ pretty well.

The rest of the cast is either too quiet or not nearly quirky, natural nor offbeat enough to carry off the subtle, whimsical, (moments of The League of Gentleman) script.

15. The Limited Perspective
Waiting in a cafe you are shocked to discover that it is providing shelter for gossiping bankers, old couples, feuding siblings and forbidden lovers… but who are you to judge?
ITC : King Street Playhouse
Writer/Director: Cindy de Wet (Auckland)
Cast: (in alphabetical order) Alvin Maharaj (Cafe Owner); Andrew Morrison (Peter); Ash Jones (Matt); Chris Carlsen (Barista); Dan Veint (Caleb); Hanna Hegan (Monique); Keri Ireton (Lesley); Lucy Smith (Fiona); Monica Stewart (Maggie); Sheryl Stewart (Jasmine); Zoe Cramond (Moana).

The Limited Perspective attempts to engage our seemingly inherent desire to eavesdrop on fellow café goers but this fly-on-the-wall theatre is lack lustre at best. One only listens intently to an overheard conversation if the conversation is interesting.

While an older woman with an under-aged boy, a feuding family and office gossip might have some potential appeal, the script fails to realise this and leaves the audience listening to dialogues that in themselves are not worth listening to.

16. Tipping Point
Three years after their relationship ends, Laura decides she wants Rob back. He won’t call her under any circumstances so she makes the call. Does he love her enough?
Writer: Mark Andrew (Australia)
Director: Melissa Fergusson
Cast: Tama Jarman (Rob); Josephine Stewart Tewhiu (Laura)

Just let me get this off my chest: whoever suggested the grown up persons cheetah suit is a genius. Now that that’s done let me also say that this play is easily the highlight: it is a swift, powerful, genuinely funny two-hander that feels effortless and real. Josephine Stewart, as Laura, does an exceptional job of being still in love yet disappointed and as her counter part, Rob, Tama Jarman, doesn’t let her down.

This is both off-the-wall and easy to relate to, reminiscent of dialogue snippets from Miranda July’s ‘You, Me and Everyone We Know’, except with a sturdy charm all of its own.

17. Mrs Maniben R Patel
The ageing Mrs Maniben R Patel has been in the Rest Home and the Doctor has called all her 3 Children over for an important announcement. What is the news that the Doctor wants to tell them? Will the money that Mrs Maniben has stashed away be distributed? What has fate in store for the 3 children of Mr Maniben R Patel? An hilarious social drama depicting a typical Indian family in New Zealand.
ITC : MigHT-I theatre
Writer/Director: Prashant Belwalkar
Cast: Sushma Thakur (Mrs Maniben R Patel); Kaustubh Pethe (Dr Shah); Bipin Chavan (Jignesh Patel); Andrada Neagu (Mandy Patel); Mrinal Niphadkar (Hansa Patel-Lee); Devdutt Paranjape (Chang Lee); Prashant Belwalkar (Karsan Patel); Jayshree Sonar (Kokila Patel)

A good glance into the expatriate existence of Indians living in NZ, this is a play in the same vein as ‘Meet the Kumar’s’. It has the same energy, the same exploration of stereotypes within Indian culture and the same general noisy confusion.

18. Baby
When you change, what do you leave behind?
Writer: Daniel Zollinger (Auckland)
Director: Reynald Castaneda
Cast: Anton Tennet (Tom); Virginia Frankovich (Lee); Steven Ciprian (Dad); Robyn Donnelley (Mum)

Oh he’s going to get a sex change! No, hold on, hold on; he’s going to have ‘The Change’ in a 2030 kind of sense, as in, he’s going to become part of the internet. Obviously.

The way Baby leads us to believe that our protagonist might be intending to become a womanis clever. It also very lightly touches upon the metaphysical quandary of ‘what is reality?’ Were these two elements further explored perhaps this would be a more interesting piece.

As it stands it is more an unbelievable send off to a guy who has been criticized for ‘running away from his problems’ but who fails to truly explain the deeply interesting thing he is intending to do and its ramifications.

19. Rupert and the Seven Russian Email Brides
When Petra meets Rupert one day at work, he seems quite nice. Maybe they could go out sometime. But first she has to fight off the competition – Darya, Tatyana, Vera, Alena, Sabryn B, Natalia and Olga. A comedy about being very, very lucky in love…
Directors: Amanda Prasow and Jo Clark
Writer: Alex Broun (Australia)
Cast: Charlie Unwin (Rupert); Jo Clark (Petra); Lisette de Jong (Vera); Gina Timberlake (Natalia); Amanda Prasow (Tatyana); Amy Waller (Sabryn B); Meleane Bourke (Alena); Renae Maihi (Darya) and Alisha Paul (Olga).

Permit me to mention, my sister got sent an email a while ago with the photo of a young Russian girl, her statistics and a plea for marriage, signed with this message: “I will be waiting for your letter with sweet impatience. Remember that all depends on you. I send you my friendly kiss in your cheek.”

So honestly the opportunity for comedy here is rampant, the idea of basing a play around such desperate human nature is brilliant, though it feels a little rushed as though the writer (an Australian contender, Alex Brown) has conceived it and then patched the rest of the play on top.

Perhaps part of this is due to the overwhelming leap of faith required of the audience to believe that a co-worker would look at a man with a Russian mail order bride harem stuck to his wall and go ‘yeah, yeah, he looks like a good guy.’

If the play was simpler and stuck more closely to the seed idea that exists within those extraordinary emails, works of art and pidgin English, this could have more impact.
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ITC: www.DramaTrain.co.nz
Writer: Jonathan Gavin (Australia)
Director: Adam Fresco
Cast: Michael Morris (Simon), Cindy De Wet (Rita), Patricia Hollran (Diana) Tahl Kennedy (Paul) with LIVE music by Henry ‘Midge’ Perez

“Two strangers meet and form an instant dislike… So begins a comic odyssey of love, lust and loss spanning years and continents – all in just 10 hectic, hilarious, heart warming minutes.

A quirky look at love and its associated mishaps: impassioned loneliness, marriage disintegration, rekindled passion and “miniscule hello’s”… Rita and Simon’s haphazard love / hate affair is portrayed under the dim glow of cell phone light and tacky two-stepped salsa tunes. Sleepless Night is a clever dissection of the much lamented but equally lauded mysteries of the heart.

Believable as a couple, Michael Morris (Simon) and Cindy De Wet (Rita) make a handsome pair as the two misguided lovers. Equally comfortable in their relationship guise, Patricia Halloran (Diana) and Tahl Kennedy (Paul) portray the ‘settled couple’ well.
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Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Reviewer (noun) A person who formally assess or examines something.

Venus Stephens did a wonderful job of setting the tone for the reviewing of New Zealand’s inaugural Short and Sweet performances for Theatreview and so I shall diligently follow in her footsteps.

The works I’m reviewing are the Wildcards, the mavericks or perhaps the underdogs – significantly less polished works than those presented on the opening night. As such the Wildcards are aptly named.

It is an undeniably beautiful thing to watch people make dramatic art: the energy, the time, the use of space and movement, the words and thoughts all playing off each other … There is so much to adore about the integrity of a production such as Short and Sweet. To be given a chance to make such art and a stage to perform it on is something to be praised, but that does not mean that an idea alone is enough.

Watching a play is an experience on so many levels: intellectual, visceral, personal, ideological, and whimsical. It is a tough thing to engage an audience on so many levels and well worth trying because such a success is a great antidote to misanthropy. This is why theatre is important but great theatre is rare.

Tolstoy describes art as a human activity were by “one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are affected by these feelings and also experience them.”

Here then is an honest appraisal of the effectiveness of dramatic art by the wonderful Wildcard entrants who attempted to affect our feelings through theatre.

1. Citizen 3:
ITC: The Oryza Foundation for the Performing Arts
Director: Yee Yang ‘Square’ Lee
Writer: Davina Goh (Malaysia)

This play looks at how our upbringing can leave us stranded and how race can be as ill defining as hair colour. There is a line in the play – “I have no idea where I come from, BUT, I’d like to keep it that way” – which rather captures the idea of this play and its failings. There is a legitimate willingness to delve into how race doesn’t necessarily inform identity but the play itself feels like it doesn’t know where it has come from or where it is going.

2. Hunterville:
Director: Ben Moore
Writer: Donna Banicevich Gera (Wellington)

An examination of an affair between a teacher and a pupil from many perspectives is a clever idea. There are moments of raunchy lasciviousness that are brave if not slightly unnerving and the exploration of how multi-sided any one story can be is interesting. Yet it lacks a coherency and at times the piece is too confusing for its own good. The cast is strong but the concept is a bit tired and sheds nothing new on the topic of dominating male teacher and petulant over sexualised youth.

3. Homeless:
Writer: Steve Deluxe (Wellington, New Zealand)
Director: Sean Spratt
Cast: Jennifer Clamp (Rachel), Matt Halliday (Gavin), Carl Smith (Charles), Philip Vaughan (Bob)

“Mistaken identities, fathers and sons, ex-lovers, homelessness and the quest for a shopping bag!”

This was the audience winner and with good reason; it is sweet, well acted, with oddball comedic timing and a naivety between the two main characters that speaks of both social awkwardness and the comfort we can find in strangers. It feels like a good short story and a good short story can be a great thing.

4. Squeaky Clean Hotel:
Writer: Andre Surridge (Hamilton, New Zealand)
Director: Katharine Phyn
Cast: Tim White (Hank), Sia Trokenheim (Joan), Andrew Hedley (David), Patricia Hollran (Rosanna)

“This short play is based on an actual incident between a London hotel and one of its guests. A clean little comic exchange about a businessman, his bathroom, and the intractable machinery of hotel customer service.”

This is a genius piece of simplicity (I think); with its sparse focus on plot it doesn’t lose itself in its own turns and intentions (as a lot of the others tend to). An aggrieved hotel guest makes his distaste for hotel soap clear and we go back and forth between well-meaning hotel staff and the irate and misunderstood guest. The script is tight, clever, clean and effective. The cast is all good but the efficacy of the entire piece seems to land squarely on the shoulders of Tim White who played the hotel guest, Hank. His Southern accent is so impressive I rather squirm in my seat.

5. Well Hung:
Writer: Laurence Dolan (Auckland)
Director: Bruce Brown
Cast: Dan Veint (Man 1), Matt Hudson (Man 2)

“When the car breaks down they resort to a night in a motel, but why were they together in the first place?”

Two men end up in a hotel room together under unexplained circumstances and of course we all jump to the familiar scenario: expatriate picks up rent boy. Not so.

Well Hung is a good piece of writing. Again it doesn’t force too much into a small space and as such relies on the quality of conversation to hold our interest. What is most exceptional is the acting of Dan Vaint who plays personable, interesting, quirky and natural as though he isn’t acting at all (which, although it may seem counter intuitive, is a compliment of the highest order).

6. Flatmate:
Writer/Director: Amanda Prasow (Auckland)
Cast: Jordan Blaikie and Belinda Di Vito

“Two flatmates come home to share an evening like any other. A tribute to those unique relationships closest to our hearts: more than friends, less than lovers and almost family…”

Two minute noodles, that ‘I need a pen’ look, bickering and latent sexual tension: just an average night in a flat.

The script for Flatmate seems to rest on the use of props – no realism is spared, from an actual jug to a computer and chairs. This is most likely due to the lack of content in the play where a pretty lack-lustre couple of average 20-somethings have a night in that ends with a repressed pash. What is lacking is friction and craft. The idea seems to be to examine the ordinary, which is a worthy concept, but requires a huge level of wordsmanship (sic) in order to not come across as, well, ordinary.

7. Violets Are Blue:
Directed (and revised) by Jack Woon
Writer: Venus Stephens (Auckland)

The title of this play is such a sweet pun (the main character is a depressed woman named Violet) and it gently sets the tone for what follows: a loving and believable look into how often people go unnoticed and uncared for and the detrimental consequences this abnegation of humanity can cause. I can imagine the bus stop where these two ladies meet and I feel like I know them; I can agree – that is what they would say. However sweet, it could benefit from being even sweeter, a little tighter; from cutting even closer to the bone.

8. Great Sexpectations:
Director: Jo Clark
Writer: Adam Walters (Australia)

Another puntastic title tipping its hat to the apparent ticking time bomb that women over thirty become in their hunt for security, sperm and a place to lay their weary nagging head. The acting in this piece is strong, which it has to be as a dinner party scene has to be perfect to hold your attention and get you to believe in the ‘organic-ness’ of the banter. However the twist is a little clichéd and the overall theme a tad contrived.

9. La Vie Dans Une Marionette:
Writer: Tama Jarman (New Zealand)
Director: Tama Jarman & Justin Haiu
ITC: Masquerade Ball
Cast: Tama Jarman (Pianist), Justin Haiu (Puppet)

“A mime loves to be the centre of attention, but hates having to share the limelight. See what happens when two mimes appear on stage at the same time…” 

This is unanimously the judge’s favourite, and so it should be. I’m not usually a fan of mimes or musicals so I am the perfect litmus test for this outstanding 10 minute broken-down puppet routine. A waspish French mime is irate at the presence of another mime on stage and the conflict is couched in music and dance, which is easily one of the most beautiful things I’ve witnessed on stage (or perhaps off). My only critique would be to say that the piano music would be more efficacious if the keys that were struck had a direct effect on the marionette’s jerky movements. Beyond that this play is irreproachable.
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Bright young things have produced numerous short films in this country, but short plays? Not quite so many. Happily, this may all be changing: enter stage west, from Australia, the world’s largest festival of 10-minute theatre pieces.

Reminiscent of the 48-hour film festival (but without the two-day production time limit), Short+Sweet is an annual competition which, this year, features 40 plays over two weeks, in four seasons of 10 plays each. The 10 plays voted the best overall will make up the gala finale on January 31.

This is a good, groundfloor way for theatre-types to get experience and get noticed without the heavier financial headaches of producing full-length plays. The staging is necessarily simple; it’s all about the performers and their words, rather than whiz-bang effects. [More]
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For more production details, click on the title above. Go to Home page to see other Reviews, recent Comments and Forum postings (under Chat Back), and News. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer