Massive Com­pany is bring­ing The Whole­hearted to Wel­ling­ton in Septem­ber. An hon­est por­tray­al of the extreme power of love, it was developed through con­ver­sa­tions with their loc­al com­munity, ask­ing them to share their per­son­al stor­ies of affec­tion and ded­ic­a­tion. The res­ult is a heart-warm­ing devised theatre work that spans gen­er­a­tions, genders and cul­tures.

Massive Company’s Artist­ic Dir­ect­or, Sam Scott, says, “We make our shows for those who love to feel the impact of their theatre exper­i­ence; who want mean­ing and con­nec­tion through see­ing stor­ies that make them laugh and dream around their own lives. We make theatre for those who want less injury and more beauty in the world. In this tricky, topsy turvy world of ours, The Whole­hearted is a great anti­dote. This show is trans­form­at­ive and fills its audi­ences with joy and hope about liv­ing.”

Massive Com­pany unites young and emer­ging theatre artists with estab­lished prac­ti­tion­ers, giv­ing new­comers time and space to flex their cre­at­ive muscle through devis­ing, per­form­ing and dir­ect­ing. The work they pro­duce is dis­tinctly Kiwi, genu­ine and con­tem­por­ary.

Kura For­res­t­er. Photo cred­it Andi Crown

Kura For­res­t­er has been work­ing with Massive Com­pany since 2008. She’s an exper­i­enced stage and screen per­former who shines in comed­ic and ser­i­ous roles. She’s one of the per­formers in The Whole­hearted and made some time to answer some of our ques­tions.

“I’ve worked really hard at com­mit­ting to being an act­or and this has paid off in the last two years, allow­ing me to get a good roll of work on. It took me ten years to work out how to bal­ance being avail­able as an act­or and also man­aging to stay alive money wise. It’s cer­tainly not easy, and a lot is sac­ri­ficed, but I feel very lucky in my work and have a good bal­ance going…..at the moment! Long may it last!

Massive Com­pany for me is such a fun, joy­ful, curi­ous com­pany filled with won­der­ful people, I will always come back. The work and the people ful­fil me in lots of ways. I get a lot of joy out of the work. The Whole­hearted is a devised show and all of the act­ors were involved in all of the mak­ing pro­cess. As part of our research we were set a task of inter­view­ing people out in the world. We asked them ques­tions about whole­hearted­ness, what this meant to them, how their hearts were being in the world, what was their idea of heav­en on earth, and many oth­er ques­tions. We drew off a lot of this work as well as our own answers to these ques­tions. 

Work­ing with phys­ic­al motif to tell stor­ies is a big part of how we make theatre in Massive Com­pany and can be seen in most of our shows. We use many dif­fer­ent tech­niques to make phys­ic­al work, often using inspir­a­tion from real life and mak­ing it dynam­ic and inter­est­ing to watch. We work very hard and as act­ors have to be very fit and always ready to attack the work.

 Dur­ing the pro­cess of mak­ing this show it became very appar­ent to us all that in order to tell these stor­ies we needed to be liv­ing whole­heartedly in our own lives. And so, we all began to in our own ways, dis­cov­er what whole­hearted meant to us and truly work to be this way in our lives. So yes, this show has affected me a lot, I have worked to be more hon­est with myself and clear­er about what my heart wants and needs in this life.

 It’s always so awe­some as an act­or to hear how your show has moved and touched people’s lives, The Whole­hearted has had pro­found feed­back. Some of my favour­ite moments have been hear­ing people say “This show really cracked me open”, and young people respond­ing to the show with “I nev­er knew theatre could be like this, its’ made me think about my own life”. These are always very spe­cial and reward­ing moments.”

Kura hopes the Wel­ling­ton audi­ence will “be pro­voked to look inside them­selves and see how they are. To laugh and cry and whoop with joy! To smile and be so pleased they decided to come!”