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By Renee Liang

One of the things I love about an Arts Festival is the feeling that, for a moment at least, the world has come to my city. The curtains draw back – the stage widens. I can watch, learn, absorb.  I can measure my work and those of my colleagues against a broader canvas.

This week, I watched both international and locally-made shows.  I was happy to see that the locals stack up well against their international colleagues.  Our ideas are fresh, unique and vigorously developed. Our production resources may not be as much, but it is the ideas and writing that count.  Once again, I attended the shows to see what I could learn as an emerging artist. Below are some of my ‘mental notes.’

One Man, Two Guvnors

One of the few disappointments of the Festival.  It’s a show that’s clearly had a lot of money spent on it: expensive, intricate sets; a large imported cast complete with four piece band (with no obvious need to be there); heavy marketing.  Yet I left unsatisfied. The reason? It didn’t engage the heart and mind.  The main purpose of the show seemed to be ‘entertainment’, and while it’s fine for a show to merely entertain, it’s a bit of a lowly ambition. (Yes, I’m a theatre snob.)  There are plenty of shows which manage all three, and on far less budget. Learning point: You can spend money and it could all turn into empty calories unless you pay attention.

Urban

This lived up to its tag line of ‘revolutionary circus’, full of a raw energy and risk taking that seemed entirely authentic. A show that purports to tell the stories of its disadvantaged performers walks a fine line between empowerment and spectacle.  This show landed firmly on the empowerment side, as evidenced by the passionate audience response – many in the audience were young. The fact that many of the performers were telling their stories in rapid fire Spanish didn’t seem to matter; they followed up with their bodies. Lesson: Keep it real and your audience will recognise it.

Hui

A carefully nurtured homegrown work, Hui is a delicate family drama. Playwright Mitch Tawhi Thomas has done a fine job of evoking characters who are instantly familiar to us – they could be our friends, neighbours, siblings.  Yet although they are unmistakably Kiwi and Maori, they don’t spend the play declaring this.  Writing characters who act from the deep well of their cultural background, without constantly discussing it, seems obvious but is harder to do than it seems. (Try it and see.) My deepest respect to Mitch for pulling it off so well.

Leo

The premise is simple, but audacious: an actor on one side of the stage, performing live in a carefully constructed set; on the other side of the stage, a screen which shows the actor in real time, but with the projection at a 90 degree angle.  This makes the actor look as if he is defying gravity, whereas in fact he is just being incredibly athletic.  There’s a few added technological overlays as the show progresses, but it’s astonishing how engaging this one simple idea can be – drawing the audience easily into fantasy despite the ruse being clearly in front of their eyes the entire time.  The charm of this show is its self-knowing-ness. Lessons: Keep it as simple as it needs to be. Laugh at yourself and the audience will laugh with you.

I, George Nepia

A solo actor with a chair, a few simple props and a projection screen keeps us engaged for 75 minutes. It’s a long time for a solo play, but actor Jarod Rawiri has the warmth and skill to embody both the aging rugby hero looking back on his eventful life, and the wide-eyed young fullback embarking on his first overseas tour as an All Black.  The animated digital artwork on the screen is simple and unobtrusive but aids the narrative.  Once again, it’s a lesson in ‘less is more’, and the power of a personal story.

I attended two other shows, Walk Eat Talk and En Route – both examples of promenade theatre.  I had such an overwhelming response to then that I decided to write about them separately.

As I write, the Festival is about to close. I’m about to burst from creative over stimulation, but my little girl (and her long suffering dad) is going to be glad to get mummy back in the evenings. Watch out for my final Festival wrap up this coming week.