Two shows fea­tur­ing asshole* men. What are the odds? The odds are good and pretty enter­tain­ing.

The Biggest by Jam­ie McCaskill

Stu has had a ter­rible acci­dent, writ­ing off the car and the boat. His mates – Wal­ter, Pat, and Mick – decide to enter a fish­ing com­pet­i­tion to win him a new boat. Loc­al fish­ing cham­pi­on Jan Thinks this is a stu­pid idea and will do almost any­thing to pre­vent them win­ning.

It’s a lot of fun to watch exper­i­enced act­ors at their game and Jim Mori­arty (Wal­ter), Peter Hamb­leton (Pat), Tim Gor­don (Stu), and Apir­ana Taylor (Mick) look like they’re enjoy­ing them­selves on stage. Mori­arty is fid­gety and cheeky; Hamb­leton sol­id and fussy; Gor­don slightly exas­per­ated at the situ­ation he (Stu) finds him­self in; Taylor quiet and self con­tained. Join­ing them are Wes­ley Dowdell (Jan) and Moana Ete (Cas­sie). Dowdell is won­der­fully annoy­ing and Ete is par­tic­u­larly good when she loses patience.

There’s lots of swear­ing and banter in dia­logue that cap­tures the essence of how rur­al men talk with their peers.  The char­ac­ters are sim­ul­tan­eously hon­est about their feel­ings (“Why are you such an asshole?”) while hid­ing some of the more per­son­al aspects of their lives. Some of these aspects are revealed which cla­ri­fies (some) of the beha­viour.

  • The Biggest, on at the Han­nah Play­house to 12 Novem­ber 2016

Cent­ral by Dave Arm­strong

Cher­ie and Michael are writ­ing a small film togeth­er until Michael gets called back to big budget Hol­ly­wood. He took the job to pay loc­al build­er Bri­an for the new deck addi­tion. Bri­an thinks he knows clean­er Kar­en even though she says he doesn’t. Cher­ie just wants Michael home.

Daniel Wil­li­ams’ set and cos­tume design provide an expans­ively sterile liv­ing space for the action. Claire Waldron (Cher­ie) and Tom Trevella (Michael) do a good job of being a long estab­lished couple work­ing on a pro­ject togeth­er.  Trevella is mostly bluster in his fairly broad por­tray­al of Michael. Waldron man­ages to give Cher­ie lay­ers while bring­ing some heart to the stage. Alex Greig  (Bri­an) does his best bloke impres­sion but man­ages to rise out of that in the last few scenes. Har­riet Preb­ble (Kar­en) lurks around the edges of scenes which is really all she’s required to do.

The play­wright states in the pro­gramme “I believe a good play doesn’t give answers to its audi­ence but asks ques­tions of it.” The script has some inter­est­ing things to say about the ten­sions between cer­tain types of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and the idea of 100% green NZ, the very wealthy and the not so well off, and what it takes to suc­ceed.

  • Cent­ral, on at Circa Theatre to 12 Novem­ber 2016

 

*as described by the oth­er char­ac­ters pretty early on in the piece. This isn’t a spoil­er for either show.