Wellington’s indispensable Te Auaha venue* is buzzing as mostly young people gather for the multiple NZ Fringe shows on offer. It’s a vibrant full house in Tapere Iti for the world premiere of The Last Crime, co-written by Jamie Honey (also the Director) and Ethan Cranefield (also the Sound Designer).

They’ve used the Film Noir genre and tropes to build on the intriguing premise that “a grizzled detective is facing the possibility of no longer being needed as the hero” once the last crime has been solved, in an unnamed 1940s city. The play thereby “explores themes of self-knowledge, change, and the human condition.” It’s also billed as “a philosophical comedic commentary on the anxieties of a changing world.”

The many creative elements in this clearly well-rehearsed production are cleverly executed, eliciting enthusiastic responses from the peer-group audience.

The black & white design palette is gloriously disrupted with a burst of colour at about the two-thirds mark (Prop Designer, Lucy Sansome). Henry Brosnahan’s set design features a moveable counter that serves as a bar, and as a desk in a police station and insurance office, etc, complete with a rotary dial telephone. Trapezoid screens hang in the black space. One extremely effective multi-screen projection of accelerating spinning circles accompanies well-executed ‘fast-forward’ (in)action as the central character waits for a crime to turn up.

The lighting and projections, designed and operated by Joshua Lees, are suitably ‘noir’ and impeccably timed along with Ethan Cranefield’s sound effects, operated by Will McMorran. Daniel Honey’s music compositions enhance the action, although attention does need to be paid to the sound balance where some dialogue is drowned, by high-pitched notes especially.

Neve Harrison’s costumes are true to the classic archetypes of the genre. The hyper-designed b&w face make-up by Pan Clark, assisted by Jamie Sayers, is something else again. Less would be more, I feel, so that they blend in to amplify each character, like commedia masks, rather than sit on top of the faces like masks designed to conceal.  

Nathaniel Smith is deeply immersed in the role of hard-boiled Detective Frank Holloway. Maybe it’s his surly demeanour that makes him fade out at the end of many sentences, so that we lose information that may be crucial. His comic timing is spot on, however.

On a dramaturgical note, surely the genre requires Frank to be a private detective (think Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, etc). As such, he’d be employed by some citizen, invariably a femme-fatale, to investigate things the police don’t, or won’t. Private dicks are independent contractors who need to be paid by clients to make their living and support their compulsion to booze – a trope to which Frank adheres.

The bored barmaid, Jack, who can’t wait to get out of this small town, is captured well by Sophie Kells. Nathan Arnott convinces us that Cliff, the hard-boiled police detective, is ready to retire. Zoe Harris is wonderfully idiosyncratic as Audrey Sinclair. Is she in gaol because she committed the last crime or is it her bitterness at losing a boiled egg competition that’s made her so dangerous? It seems that the latter has made her identify more as a chook and/or magpie than as human.

Speaking of which, the feather Frank fiddles with and contemplates at the bar in the pre-set, and later identifies as a magpie feather, clearly came from a huia. Such feathers symbolise leadership and mana in te āo Māori. The huia is also extinct. This piques my interest before the play starts, hoping it is a clue to the story about to unfold. I’m disappointed, therefore, that four of the six characters have USA accents; that the opportunity to give the genre a refresh by setting the story in NZ is squandered. Although there’s no explanation for it, I do enjoy Audrey and Cliff’s Kiwi voices – and, to be fair, the others carry their USA accents well.

Benny, the cab driver aspiring to a surprising change of career, arguably has the most complex character and AJ Wheatley navigates the twists and turns well. Lizzie Bysouth’s pearl-necklaced Caroline clearly articulates her vulnerability as a ‘rich dame’ for whom “trouble is always around the next corner.” More could be made non-verbally of her unrequited attraction to Frank and his inability to reciprocate. Subtext is a strong component of the film noir genre. Indeed Caroline – “call me Carol” – is crying out to be the flawed femme-fatale who hires Frank (see above).

Hand guns and chalk outlines come to the fore as the plot convolutions play out. While the hard-boiled dialogue and design elements do their respective jobs, more could be done to mark key moments – e.g. when Frank’s body-count drought is broken at last – and to create tension as characters’ lives are threatened. There is a thriller dimension to the genre too.

Of course, this premiere is staged without any previews. Even with skilled practitioners like those involved here, an ambitious production like this needs at least a couple of previews, if not a whole run-in week as might happen elsewhere in the world. I sincerely hope this short season is not the last we see of The Last Crime.

*If Te Auaha is closed, as threatened by the powers that be, we will lose more than a building. Without this facility the migration of fresh new talent to Auckland or Australia will escalate to the detriment of Wellington’s cultural landscape.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer