image of four young women with cricket bat in the bushYou’ll remem­ber Emma from her reviews right here on the ‘ista. Turns out she’s putting her mon­ey where her mouth is, so I had a chat with her about it.
Feb­ru­ary 5–9pm
Bats The­atre

Emma! You’re doing a play! What’s it all about?

Four women break into an aban­doned the­atre one night to shel­ter from a storm. They’re bat­tered, bro­ken, bereaved. Over the course of their night there, the the­atre’s ghost­ly occu­pants draw sto­ries from them, and begin to grow clos­er to the run­aways. How­ev­er, all is not as it seems, and the women must do all they can to get out alive. It’s a sto­ry about grief and found fam­i­lies, real­ly. We all deal with a loss dif­fer­ent­ly, and I found that ghost sto­ries tend to be a very inter­est­ing way to explore that con­cept. Ghosts are like us, but also not like us — they’re removed from time, but they’re cer­tain­ly not removed from emo­tion. I think it would be very hard to be a ghost. 

Tell us a bit about how this piece was developed?

We devised the first twen­ty­ish min­utes of it with an orig­i­nal cast in Oct-Nov last year, then I wrote a play around it. It’s been in the rehearsal stages since late Novem­ber. 

Apart from being a critic for the Wellingtonista, what’s your background history with theatre?

I’ve been act­ing on and off for the last sev­en­teen years. I did my under­grad­u­ate degree in the­atre and film, and this show is the cul­mi­na­tion of my MFA in The­atre.

If someone was not really a theatre buff, any tips you could give them about how to watch a play?

You real­ly don’t need to be ‘into the­atre’ to see the­atre. Think of it this way — no-one ever says ”Oh, I can’t watch [INSERT SHOW NAME HERE] — I don’t like tele­vi­sion.” NO-ONE does that. We all have some­thing we like to watch on tv, even if it’s just the news, or soap operas, or pan­el shows. The­atre is the same. There’s always some kind of per­for­mance on that’ll appeal to you. Whether that’s a pan­tomime, or a musi­cal, or a one-man show, there’ll always be some­thing that can appeal to you. I think we often get a lit­tle bit ner­vous going to the­atre (if we don’t go often). It’s eas­i­er to watch face­less peo­ple on a tv screen who don’t look at you or react to what you’re doing in the audi­ence, and that can be scary, but the­atre’s not an alien world. It’s just a dif­fer­ent way of cre­ative expres­sion.

Some tips

  • If you don’t go to the­atre often, shows marked as ‘exper­i­men­tal’ might be a lit­tle much. I’m not say­ing don’t give them a go, but maybe start with some­thing that’s more well-hewn and recog­nis­able.
  • Welling­ton is FULL of the­atres. BATS sup­ports emerg­ing artists with unique shows, but I’ve seen some of the best shows I’ve ever seen there. Cir­ca tends to do more script-based stuff, and then there’s obvi­ous­ly the St James and the Opera House. If you don’t go to the­atre often, maybe start with an artist/performer you know? The Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val is com­ing up soon — there’s a lot of well-known per­form­ers com­ing to town.
  • Just give it a go! You live in Welling­ton, one of the most cre­ative cen­ters in New Zealand. If you’re not get­ting amongst you real­ly should be.