There can be few productions in Wellington lately that have an opening as spectacular as Downstage Theatre’s current production from SEEyD – The Spy Who Wouldn’t Die Again. Even Hollywood would be hard pressed to create an action packed set of credits like this production does. And the energy and action shown through the opening moments of this new creation from SEEyD sets the tone for most of the remainder of the production. 

This action packed spy thriller, based on a dream that Ian Fleming never had involving Agents 008 – Peebles (Tim Spite) and Agent 009 – Stephen St Clair (Nick Dunbar) is set in NZ in 1985 when David Lange was Prime Minster selling off state assets, when his anti-nuclear policy caused the United States to cut military ties with New Zealand and the Rainbow Warrior was blown up.

On a farm near Rotorua Gerald Bloke (Bryan Coll) has invented a perpetual motion machine that is going to revolutionise household power supplies and negate the need for nuclear power. But this will also negate the use of nuclear war heads and cause peace, which the Americans can’t abide. So when Agent 008 steals the machine and hides away up the Wanganui River at A Bridge To Nowhere Agent 009 is sent to find him and retrieve the machine to destroy it thus saving the world. 

French agent Dominique Le Fleur (Darlene Mohekey) also gets involved, at first against Agent 009 then joining forces to defeat Agent 008. There are many sub plots and sub-sub plots and continual mayhem abounds on stage until finally good triumphs over evil.

Although Spite’s theatre company SEEyD has often dealt with subjects that are more weighty than frivolous, Spite himself does have a penchant for playing mad cap roles as seen in his stand out performance in Circa Theatre’s production of 39 Steps back in 2009. And in this production he excels in the half dozen roles he plays in addition to Agent 008, including every conceivable accent from around the globe. 

Likewise Mohekey and Coll play myriad roles with great agility, maintaining the pace of the production with lighting fast changes of character. All this revolves around the stoic Agent 009 of Dunbar, the epitome of the stiff upper lip, a very creditable Bond-like character.

The inventiveness and creativity of the production is quite extraordinary, like countless Bond movies created live on stage albeit with the creators tongue firmly in their cheek. And although the second half becomes somewhat protracted and loses a certain amount of momentum, writers Tim Spite and Gabe McDonnell under Spite’s direction have created and produced a highly original and entertaining piece of theatre that shouldn’t be missed. 
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I’m guessing that in the process of performing in two seasons of The 39 Steps at Circa (July-Aug 09; Jan-Feb 10), Tim Spite fell to wondering what sort of ripping international espionage yarn could be spun in New Zealand. And given his track-record, rather than simply spoof the genre – as The 39 Steps and Circa’s more recent Our Man in Havana did – he would surely feel compelled to use the theatrical vehicle to convey something of greater value than its silly-seeming self.

We have come to expect that anything produced by The SEEyD Company ‘out of Spite’ will play with an issue or two in a highly creative way. And yes, despite the predominance of theatrical ebullience in their Bondicious The Spy Who Wouldn’t Die Again – written by Tim Spite and Gabe McDonnell – the final moments do deliver the sting, albeit whimsical, that gives us more to take away than just an appreciation of a clever comic spectacle.

The back-projected cinematic opening credit sequence with sharply delineated shadow figures – a device that is brilliantly used throughout – and the highly physical mortal combat prologue are marvellously spectacular. As with Paua (early 2008), surprising action is vertically integrated into the lateral plane via the grid above and a couple of trapdoors to hidden depths.

The play proper starts with suave and silver-haired Stephen St Clair (Nick Dunbar), Agent 009 for Britain’s MI6, delivering his retirement speech to a room of drunken, raucous spies. This segues into a memory of the mission his boss Maxine (Darlene Mohekey) dispatched him on in 1985, to New Zealand.

His quest is two-fold: to ‘acquire’ the revolutionary energy device that one Gerald Bloke (Byron Coll) has invented in his shed, and to track down Peebles (Spite), a.k.a Agent 008, who has disappeared following the unfortunate incident in Japan – played out in the prologue – that divested him of his hands.

Our mid-8os socio-political climate is cleverly insinuated. Late in the piece St Clair’s strangely clandestine meeting with David Lange (Spite) on the Silver Fern – the train that “gives the country its spine” – establishes that the soon-to-be infamous Oxford Union debate is coming up. Given that was 1 March, this is early in 1985 and the Rainbow Warrior bombing (10 July) has yet to happen. Corporatisation and corporate raiding (turning corps into corpses) is rife, however, and nuclear energy-cum-nuclear weapons rate high on the global agenda. 

Equipped, by MI6’s Gibbs (Spite), with an eclectic range of gadgets (made by Gary Sammons) – a contraption to help combat tall poppy syndrome; a pop-up tent containing a Spare Person (Coll), a jacket with a built-in parachute (which does get used!); a grenade watch, a banana pistol and a pair of ‘4^th wall’-breaking spectacles – St Clair arrives in New Zealand.

Checking into Rotorua’s wonderfully mundane Pacific Paradise Motel, run a by a crack-up dag called Fred (Coll), St Clair finds himself face-to-face with gorgeous Dominique Le Fleur (Mohekey), who totes a brick-sized cellular phone and claims to just be there “for the mud”. But of course she, too, is after the energy machine that will change the world forever …

And so the thrills, spills and double crossing shenanigans take off, laced with the genre’s trademark star-crossed romance-under-fire. As Nick Dunbar contrasts St Clair’s pommy aplomb with splendid physical dexterity, Coll, Mohekey and Spite play a rich array of idiosyncratic characters, including a veritable united nations of secret agents, supplemented at strategic points by stage manager Isaac Heron, who also plays a shark.

Along with her formidable Dominique and no-nonsense Maxine, Darlene Mohekey brings the house down with her jet boat custodian Turuturu Pukumimi, an old Maori woman who’s had a stroke.

Byron Coll contrasts his range of Kiwi characters – Fred, a camp thermal wonderland guide, the paranoid genius Gerald Bloke and Peeble’s right-and-left-hand man Snively – with the robotic Spare Man (mesmerising) and tops it all by playing both Snively and would-be Japanese buyer Kamasuri in a very funny negotiation scene.

On the aforementioned train trip, which features a toxic railway pie, a couple of teenagers turn up: an Aussie kid called Julian Assange (Coll) with his little Maori mate Wiki Leach (Mohekey). There are subtle sparks of genius in the detail and you need to keep our wits about you to pick up on them. Seriously, if you sit back and let it wash over you assuming it’s just mindless entertainment, you’ll miss some priceless gems.

The psychotic Peebles, who has stolen the machine for his own nefarious purposes, is Tim Spite’s major role but he keeps popping up throughout the show in other guises (how he ever got a moment to stand back and be the director beats me). His obligatory cross-dressed role is Gerald’s wife Norma Bloke, his stolid policeman is classic country fare, he brings a farrago of accents to his multi-aliased secret agent Hans, and (despite a wrong-coloured wig which is nevertheless accurately shaped) his David Lange is a nostalgic gem.

In acknowledging the stunning quick-change skills of Spite, Coll and Mohekey, credit must also go to costume designer Gillie Coxill whose always apt clobber has cleary been ingeniously configured to allow for fast donning and doffing. Kudos, too, in this respect to wig-co-ordinator Vicky Kothroulas.

Lighting designer Jennifer Lal has become an essential part of the SEEyD brand and once more delivers a fluid and unobtrusive plot – operated by Ulli Briese – to meet the exacting demands of a fast moving and ‘vertically integrated’ production.

Also meeting a huge challenge is Thomas Press with his sound design and original composition – including a theme song, ‘Destiny in Motion’, sung and danced (in silhouette) by Phoebe Hurst. Be it a subtle plop of water, the thunderous roar of a helicopter or anything in between, he gets it bang on.

What starts as a bare stage with a large white curtain soon reveals a range of surprises. The set elements – designed by Tim Spite and SEEyD – and the props have been made by SEEyD, who have once more made the most of the Downstage theatre space. In and of itself the skilfully delivered theatrical spectacle is wondrous to behold.

It is the return to St Clair’s retirement speech and his ‘happy ending’ vision of how it has all resolved that gives us pause for thought and proves there has been purposeful method in this inspired madness. It’s all a question of power.

This brings to an end SEEyD’s three-year stint as one of Downstage’s Resident Companies. Who knows what the future will bring and where. Meanwhile I hope someone is writing a thesis on the style and content of The SEEyD Company’s productions.
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