Popcorn

Wel­ling­ton Rep­er­tory Theatre’s new­est offer­ing is Pop­corn, Ben Elton’s play. The dia­logue is witty, the script­ing tight and the themes pres­ci­ent des­pite being writ­ten in 1996.

Set in the home of a exploit­a­tion cinema dir­ect­or, Bruce Delametri, Pop­corn takes place over one night as the legendary Mall Mur­der­ers invade Bruce’s house after he wins an Oscar and demand his and his fam­ily’s com­pli­ance towards their fiendish plan. With murder, may­hem and a lot of sexu­al­ity, it is a piece for those of you unafraid of a bit of spice in your night out.

The per­form­ances are the high­light of this piece, with spe­cial note made to three par­tic­u­larly chal­len­ging roles, those of Wayne and Scout – the Mall Mur­der­ers, played by Jonath­an Beres­ford and Sara Douglas – and Brooke, an up and com­ing act­ress, played by Sta­cey O’Bri­en. Beres­ford and Douglas bring a enter­tain­ing insan­ity to their roles, hov­er­ing on a knife’s edge, ready to snap at any moment. O’Bri­en, play­ing multi-faceted and eager Brooke, has an inter­est­ing dance moment, as well as a lot of great asides to the audi­ence.

I do, how­ever, ques­tion the baff­ling choice of punc­tu­at­ing every joke or heavy moment on stage with a cor­res­pond­ing image-based ele­ment on the giant tele­vi­sion screen that takes up a large por­tion of vis­ible stage space. I under­stand that films and film­mak­ing are a sig­ni­fic­ant theme of this show, how­ever, it reads as a little con­des­cend­ing to the audi­ence to visu­ally explain jokes that they already have laughed at, espe­cially as this is not an ele­ment present with­in the base script. The screen, at times, is also rather dis­tract­ing, and per­haps not as innately neces­sary as used.

How­ever, Pop­corn is an inter­est­ing, though viol­ent show, that feels a little like being on the edge of a pan­ic attack. The pace does­n’t let up for the hour and a half long piece, and the show itself is mostly quite strong. Bring your shocked gasps!

Pop­corn is being per­formed at the Gryphon Theatre in Wel­ling­ton until the 19th of June – no show on Monday. Tick­ets avail­able here.