Ancient comedy is hard to stage. Its jokes reference a time period with values and social norms that can sometimes seem alien to modern audiences, available translations can be toned down or written in a register that feels a bit dated, and it deploys literally the oldest jokes in the book. Getting all of that to feel fresh, relatable and punchy is a tall order. Here’s one answer to the challenge: let Michael Hurst make an ass of himself for eighty minutes.

It’s brilliant. Hurst choses to wrestle with the text one-on-one. He has adapted it out of older translations, dragging the central narrative into the twenty-first century. He leaves in some of the more evocative Latin similes which, with the right delivery, are real hits with the audience – a favourite one: “She will drain you as dry as hay.”

Contrasts abound between three distinct cultural settings: full antiquity, full modernity and a liminal world somewhere in the middle where the academic papers and pop-culture references live. The story, the characters and the references are constantly modulating between these layers. Hurst’s game is to make all of the layers interleave and connect.

We start by defining the oldest world, the Roman world of late Imperial antiquity, a place we can only see through layers of iteration and distortion. Hurst lays that groundwork with a flood of Latin monologue which, thankfully, doesn’t last. In his words, it won’t do to “come all the way from Palmerston North” and see a theatrical museum piece!

Then there is a kind of pseudo highbrow narrative voice. Its chief vehicle is Lucius Apulius, the author, who is characterised as a voice of experience. He can be florid, he speaks in an eloquent and educated register, with frequent pauses for self-deprecation. Author-Lucius comes closest to embodying the Robert Graves translation which Hurst says is an inspiration for this one-person play.

Another layer goes on: author-Lucius takes on the role of his younger, arrogant and inexperienced selves. Hurst does fantastic body-work with just enough costume, props and set elements to really transform himself back in time. It’s wonderful to see what he will do next. John Verryt’s tight little island of a set is a perfect foil for Hurst’s physical and vocal antics. It is like a sketch pad, onto which the tech Michael Lyell-O’Reilly can project nuances of light, ambient noise and discreet musical cues where the audience needs delicate immersion – or smash-cut with a hilariously jarring rooster noise to the next lurid adventure.

The play shows signs of friction at times, between the ancient text and modern social norms. This tension works fine where it is simply called out for what it is. It even helps to power Lucius’s character arc. In both the ancient tale and this modern one, Lucius’s story is about humiliation and humility: Lucius sheds the selfish life-blindness of youth, discovering his empathy and connection to a broader range of society.

That same friction does get a little troubling when Hurst brings in a few of the comedic side characters that dot Apuleius’s storytelling. Giving a low-status flavour character a regional British accent to distinguish them is probably the least offensive choice one could make, and maybe this is a nod to the Graves translation. However, it does assume something about the audience and what or who they would consider safe to mock – or which accents they might recognise. This might just be one of those ancient theatre challenges which is impossible to unpack, and it is a very minor speed-bump in an otherwise fantastically engaging show.

This reviewer brought along a companion who does not have a Classical education: they absolutely loved the transformation sequences and immediately drew parallels between the ancient cautionary tale and the predicaments of Pinocchio and Bottom. Perhaps we could even include the donkey from Shrek in the same cultural journey. The point is, this odd collection of slapstick adventures is a fascinating starting point. It’s well worth going even if Roman history isn’t your thing, simply to travel to a time where all those corny old jokes were wild and new.

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I had not read any backstory to this show, assuming some connection to A Midsummers Night’s Dream – Michael Hurst, an Ass, what else could it be? Well deeper and more potent than I thought: both a cautionary and inspiring tale, told raucously well.

Our Playhouse Theatre in Takaka has approx 100 classic red seats, tonight filled with the familiar faces of the practitioners and patrons of the small but vibrant local theatre scene. The auditorium and stage box is in good shape and the recent re-roofing has ensured that many more shows will tread these old boards.

House lights dim and Michael Hurst walks onstage – in a white T shirt, braces, simple brown trousers, bare footed and bearded – and spouts Latin, yes Latin, a good long stretch of Latin, just Latin. Dropping out of character and breaking the 4th wall he quips, “You know it’s all in Latin, right?” The room lifts with laughter and we are quickly at ease, ready to be taken wherever this actor, at the top of his craft, will take us.

This is a very new show, we are just the 5th audience to see this work. It is so fresh off the page, Hurst is almost fizzing as he rollicks through character after character, setting up the world of the outrageous cast in the telling that he – with Director John Gibson and a very strong production team – has made.

I love seeing works at this stage in their creation. The spirit of the work is busy finding it’s voice, with every possibility still bursting to be included in what will, by the culmination of this 4 week, 25 show tour, be a defined rendition of what these story tellers set out to make. The support that Arts On Tour give is a boon in this tiny country, providing a vehicle where our theatre craft is given the rigorous road testing of a national tour. It is a valuable opportunity to run a show in different spaces, in front of different audiences, night after night, honing the work and through this process to give it the genuine possibility of longevity.

A new show, perhaps, but Hurst has ‘freely adapted’ from a very old story, nearly 2000 years old, The Golden Ass being The Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, written by Apuleius approx 160AD.

So off we go. Our narrator and primary protagonist, Lucius, brings us into his world. At 20 years old, he is freshly graduated from university, cocksure, and off to research his book on magic. With quite an ego on him, what could possibly go wrong? Well, of course, nearly everything does, otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a tale. We journey with Lucius, full of curiosity and desire to find the real stories of magic being practised. He seeks to get concrete first-hand stories and experiences of this hidden world of witchcraft and sorcery which will fill his book and make him famous.

Hurst plays the range of characters surrounding the protagonist with style and panache, most devastatingly in the petulant house slave-cum-lover, Erotica. Well it is 160 AD and there are many opportunities for a confidant and curious young man to explore. This is a bawdy piece of theatre, a laugh out loud, outrageous exploration of the human condition. Certainly nothing is sacred and yet there is no denigration of these character types in Hurst’s renditions. Thinking he is a young man in control of his world, he does of course follow his desires and is pulled inexorably down through various experiences into what could be described as a Jungian underworld.

Here we feel the real power of this cautionary tale stretching through the years and turning a mirror on our own times and selves. Reality bites Lucius hard at the end of the first act and we are left to ask ourselves during interval, where does this all go from here?

The second act begins with Hurst as an Ass, a visual snapshot I doubt I’ll ever forget. The rollercoaster ride of Lucius’ distorted reality really takes off. Journeying through many more characters, twists and turns, some questionable sexual predilections and finally his salvation, on his knees at the waters’ edge in the face of the rising moon. The Metamorphoses of Lucius is an inspiring treatise treatise on the point of human existence. Jeepers!

This is classic strong story telling: a simple set, simple tech, damn good acting and a relevant tale to tell. The verbal vernacular may burn very delicate ears but essentially this is a plea for empathy in a world, nearly 2000 years ago, gone mad. Relevant now? I think so. Hilarious? Totally. Good theatre? Absolutely.

If you can get to a show, go, this Golden Ass will not leave you unsatisfied.
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• Copyright © belongs to the reviewer

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer