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.