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EnsembleImpact is halfway through their national tour of schools with this year’s show Asian Invasion, a sampling of ten Kiwi-Asian plays.  Renee Liang catches up with the four actors, and their mishaps and triumphs, on tour.

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EnsembleImpact has been touring schools around NZ for six years, with a new group of four young actors each year building on the tradition of performing excerpts of standout NZ plays to secondary school audiences.  This year, the focus is on Asia with a sampling of ten plays by Kiwi-Asian writers or with Asians as main characters. Asian Invasion: Plays from the other side of Aotearoa (Ten Token Tales) features 11 extracts from 12 NZ Playwrights: Benjamin Teh, Lynda Chanwai-Earle, Michelle Ang & Jo Holstead, Renee Liang, Vincent O’Sullivan, Vela Manusaute, Sarita Keo Kossamak So, Carl Nixon, Lauren Jackson, Jacob Rajan & Justin Lewis. The actors – all of Asian heritage – are Benjamin Teh, Chye-Ling Huang, Mayen Meta and Nikita Tu-Bryant.

The title Asian Invasion, dreamt up by producer KC Kelly, was initially controversial to those who didn’t appreciate its irony and positive intent. However after a good-natured meeting with key Asian theatremakers and a makeover of the show poster (which initially featured bug-eyed aliens), Asian Invasion went ahead with the full support of its playwrights.

Renee Liang catches up with the actors on their rather eventful tour.

You're doing 70+ shows around the country over 2 months.  How do you keep the energy up?

Nikita Tu-Bryant: Exercise, good food, sleep, yoga and heaps of downtime.  I made a rule at the beginning of show, that if ever anyone needed alone time and space, just to let others know "need me time" - so no-one takes it personally and thinks it's about them.  I personally need quiet, as I am thinking and working with sound the whole time.  "Tired ears" is a very common thing with musicians.  Walks are good, and lone exploring!!  But that doesn't go to say I don't want to hang out other times!  We have a very hilarious bunch, Mayen is a bag of chuckles, and Chye-Ling also.  I think with regards to dynamics, we have a good balanced mix - we have two, more upbeat/loud/funny people (Mayen and Chye-Ling), and a wee bit more down beat/ones-who-tend-to-laugh-at-jokes-as-opposed-to-making-jokes-themselves (Ben and I).

Chye-Ling Huang: Improvising and keeping each other on our toes! Each show we have a little space to pay with a few intros or lines that are not scripted - it's becoming more and more ridiculous and inventive each time!

Benjamin Teh: Coffee seems to work. Either that or laughter. A combination of both works wonders. I really hate coffee though.

Mayen Meta: “Exercise, diet, supplements and positive thinking. Scientists believe the first human being to live over 150 years has already been born. I believe I am that human being." Sorry I just quoted Rob Lowe's character from Parks and Recreation. Thought it was very fitting for me personally! I'm not a caffeine drinker so keeping fit, healthy and getting 8+ hours every night seems to do the trick. Before each show we do group focus exercises, which I feel gives us the pump we need for the show. 

Tell me about the rehearsal process.

Chye-Ling: Three weeks of rehearsing with director Kerryn Palmer under the guidance of producer KC Kelly in Wellington, so it was relatively quick! Week one was about getting to know each other's backgrounds and bringing out personal stories (through a Macklemore cover) to the show, choosing characters and learning lines. From then we added a musical component to bring everything together, dug deeper into our characters and accents and the next thing we knew, we had a show.

Nikita: Three weeks of four hours a day (most days - with a a few days off).  I loved working with our director Kerryn Palmer as she gave a lot of freedom for interpretation, and to play around with.  I agree with Chye-Ling, as she mentioned when you have a longer rehearsal time you have more time to explore - I'd like that for next time.  Because we were on a tight rehearsal period before tour, we had to very quickly establish our characters.  In saying that though, throughout the tour we have seen development in our characters - so that's pretty rad too.  On top of that, I didn't know the other three, so it was breaking the ice on many levels.  I had a lot of freedom with creating the soundscape/music, and I have the cast and Kerry to thank for that!

Benjamin: It was three weeks of hilarious and musical dramas. We've been very lucky that we all get along and understand each other.

Mayen: Rehearsals were incredibly freeing. I was a bit hesitant at first making offers but that quickly changed when I realised Kerryn indirectly encouraged us to be silly with the scripts when we first started revising them. It was great having her on board as director. She allowed us all to take risks, play, laugh, and most importantly have fun. Which seems to be very rare in theatre? I believe this freedom lead to us making some incredibly creative decisions. It was a very collaborative process and we all encouraged each other to make bold offers. We still do that this far into the tour.

How did you put all the scenes together - is there any logic to it?

Benjamin: The scenes were selected by our director and producer, but the show as a whole flows from scene to scene like chapters in a book. Some are funny, others are controversial, some are poignant, others challenge. Ideally, it's like a series of skits that hold people's attention.

Mayen: We all wanted to find the right balance of comedic, dramatic, poignant and controversial scenes. After our first week of rehearsals we drew all the scenes out in a map. As a group our objective was to take the audience on a journey. And so we wanted a strong beginning, middle and end. In our opinion Robot vs Ninja just seemed to be the perfect opening for the play. It reels the audience in with a bang.

Chye-Ling: The running order was a collaboration to create a flow that contrasted enough to keep a high school audience engaged for 55 minutes. 

Nikita: Often after a few more upbeat/high-energy scenes we would re-focus the energy and attention to a lower-energy scene, that was intimate, and intense with not just volume.

What's the craziest character you each play?

Nikita: In the literal sense of the word, I feel the most ‘crazy’ character I play that gets to expose her ‘crazy’ side in the short scene, would be Rhea from 2 fish and a Scoop by Carl Nixon.  We played around with some of the wording - and during the rehearsal, we joked about Rhea yelling for her dad in aggressive-sounding mandarin - it ended up staying in the show.  It's hilarious as it's such a drastic change from the very blase, cool, relaxed, kiwi-attitude Rhea - to almost manic and stroppy mandarin speaking Rhea.

Benjamin: At the moment, I'd say that I play an over enthusiastic principal character, who loves his job a little bit too much.

Chye-Ling: Kayla, from Chop/Stick by Michelle Ang & Jo Holstead. She's sassy, outspoken and very un-PC.

Mayen: For me it definitely has to be the bus student from Chop/Stick. I tentatively named this character Humphrey and he verbalizes the typical experience a Chinese person may have if they speak Cantonese to the audience members who act as patrons on the bus. His monologue is an exploration into being Asian. I love this role because culturally I have to step so far outside who I really am and at the same time convince upto 200 students that I'm not who I appear to be simply due to the colour of my skin. Humprey's monologue is hilarious, heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time. He uses 'logical' comedy as a means to fend of stereotypical remarks he faces on a daily basis.  

Any road trip stories so far?

Nikita: Please read Ben's rendition of Benjamin Teh hurts himself again (13m cliff jump into Lake Wakatipu), please look up news articles on $20,000 puffer jacket heist from Kathmandu (our van was stolen to do so - and I spent a very emotional morning crying over lost instruments that were later found dumped in an alleyway), please also see Ben's blog for Mayen's hand in need of stitches due to real knife onstage.

Benjamin: We jumped off a cliff into a lake (I previously mistakenly thought it was the sea) and I dislocated my shoulder. That's funny, right?
I also personally love it when Mayen gets road rage. I think it is hysterically funny.

Chye-Ling: Our van with all our gear was stolen in Hamilton and used to raid Kathmandu of puffer jackets. Our props, costumes and instruments miraculously turned up in an alleyway next to Kathmandu within the same day.

Mayen: Plenty. This wouldn't be a fulfilling tour without road trip stories. Where would you like me to start? Dislocated shoulder? Hand being sliced open on stage? Intense Wellington road rage? 'Cold' robbers stealing our van to rob Kathmandu? Other than those listed it’s been smooth sailing. I personally love scaring people. Have scared all three members so far and they each have VERY unique reactions. What they ALL have in common is that they almost appear to have a miniature seizure/heart attack following the scare. This alone scared me back. I have vowed never to scare them again.

Can you tell me about the audience response? What kind of questions do you get asked at the end?

Nikita: The most common questions are, "how do you get into doing what you are doing" or "what university did you go to", and for Ben "are you the gig-a-what ad guy?"

I really like it when students are really engaged with the show and ask insightful questions that often take me by surprise.  Mostly, the audience response has been fantastic, and the students have "gotten it".  They understand the ideas we are provoking, and they understand the conventions we are using.  Some audiences have not been as responsive as others, and I really base that on room size and audience size.  This show performs at its best at about 60-100.  Any more, we have a pretty unruly crowd that we can't engage with in intimate scenes as we are yelling to be heard.  Any less, and we have a shy crowd that can be too afraid to express joy, sadness or laughter.  When I am offstage (playing music), I often observe the faces of students that look engaged, may have personal experiences with what we are performing - and it's always SO rewarding when I see them truly understand, and are moved by what we do. 

Benjamin: A vast majority of our audiences have loved the show, lots of laughs and plenty of engagement. People are usually just wondering how the show came together, whether the cast were all friends before the rehearsal period began, or whether we all speak more than one language.

Chye-Ling: Students seem to be loving it so far, we always get asked how this came together, where we trained. Sometimes we get asked where we come from, which always provokes some ooo's and aahhh's.

Mayen: Audience response has been overwhelmingly positive. Don't think these schools have ever seen a theatrical piece like ours. Main questions we get asked are "How did you guys come together?", "How long did you rehearse for?", "What advise can you give to aspiring actors?", "Is Ben really the guy from the Telecom Giganaire commercial?"

What locations are you looking forward to?

Nikita: I was very much looking forward to Invercargill the most. I have been on several music album release tours around NZ - but had never been as far south as Invercargill.  I looked forward to it as a challenge, as I heard it could be rather close-minded and perhaps a bit racist.  A friend had mentioned the "skin-heads" of Christchurch had migrated further South to Invercargill.  And as true as that may be - we were only there for less than 24 hours, and I still had such a fantastic experience there, with our performance, and the locals (when I went out to dinner).  Weirdly, I have experienced more negative racial tones north past Auckland, than I did far south.  It has changed my perception of the South, and I am glad to have been proved wrong.

Mayen: I was actually looking forward to the entire South Island. I know from experience that cultural diversity is not as prominent as it is in certain areas of the North Island. We have just completed the South Island and that was exactly the case. It was an honour to showcase the particular scenes in our play to these students. They were genuinely astonished and were interested to learn more about the plays/characters.  It was a treat not only for them but us as performers.

Benjamin: I can’t wait to be back in Auckland. I am really looking forward to performing for a home crowd.

Chye-Ling: The South Island was my favourite so far, but I'm looking forward to Whakatane, Nikita goes on about it!