Sim­ply put, Mere­mere is a mem­oir come to life. I don’t feel qual­i­fied to ‘review’ the piece and the rich lay­ers of cul­ture, his­to­ry, iden­ti­ty, and art con­tained with­in. It’s not quite dance, nor a film or a play — there’s a raw­ness that will appeal to those well-versed in the per­form­ing arts as much as those who aren’t ‘the­atre peo­ple.’

Bel­l’s sto­ry mean­ders, not entire­ly seam­less­ly, but always authen­ti­cal­ly, between com­e­dy and dra­ma, whim­sy and pro­fun­di­ty, as he recounts his jour­ney from Aotearoa to the Unit­ed States and back again. The nar­ra­tive has not been sani­tised for our com­fort, and those con­fronting moments about race and dis­abil­i­ty will haunt you. 

Mere­mere has all the flaw­less tech­ni­cal pro­duc­tion of a well-fund­ed stage pro­duc­tion, but the grit­ty pas­sion of a solo con­fes­sion­al. I mean that in the best way pos­si­ble — there’s some­thing to impress every­one here. Move­ment of the Human, the com­pa­ny behind Rush­es at the NZ Fes­ti­val ear­li­er this year, has done an incred­i­ble job com­ple­ment­ing Bell’s sto­ry with light, pro­jec­tion, and sound. The music is so per­fect­ly timed to the move­ment that it’s easy to for­get there is a com­pos­er stand­ing there, mak­ing it all hap­pen live. And the pro­jec­tion is a work of art unto itself, adding an enthralling lay­er to an incred­i­ble sto­ry. 

See­ing the love and admi­ra­tion between all of the col­lab­o­ra­tors on open­ing night real­ly drove home how much this sto­ry means to those bring­ing it to life. There was a lot of love in that room, and it was a priv­i­lege to be sur­round­ed by it. Some things defy descrip­tion or review, and Mere­mere is def­i­nite­ly one of them. 

Mere­mere is a poignant reminder that there’s always more lying beneath the sur­face. How many oth­er beau­ti­ful sto­ries have we over­looked because of our assump­tions about the nar­ra­tor? 

Mere­mere is on at Cir­ca The­atre until 30 June.