Two plays about the embarrassment of the human mind

John Daly-Peoples | Sunday March 14, 2010 - 10:49pm

11 & 12 by Peter Brook
St James Theatre
Until March 14

Theoremat, by Grzegorz Jarzyna
TSB Bank Arena
Until March 19

With "11 & 12" and "Theoremat" the festival provided two outstanding plays by two major international directors. One by a director who has changed the face of theatre over the last half century and the other who will probably change theatre over the next half century.

If Richard Dawkins were reviewing the two plays he would get apoplectic about them. He would lament the wasted energy and creativity which has gone into the debates, both large and small about understanding God and the sacred.

The plays, he would lament show mankind's great flaw, spending so much time and energy in the pursuit of primitive beliefs dressed up as a spurious form of philosophical thought.

Would he have seen Brook as an apologist for the good that comes from the personal search for the truth or as falling for the same spiritual claptrap that has turned the heads of many sensible people over the centuries in all cultures.

"11 & 12" is a play by older man looking back on his own life and the life of the theatre. It is tinged with the wisdom and regret which is said to come with age

It is also contemplation on the profundities and insanities of religious fanatics and their followers.

Religion in this play is paired with colonialism and is set in French Mali in the 1930's and 1950's. The overlay of Islam on the country is akin to the imposition of French rule over the territory. Both sets of rules have been enforced for the good of the people, a belief in the need for order and the purity of truth. But both are culturally destructive.

There are twinned stories; one of a young man who leaves his village to work for the French, the other is the ongoing rivalry between a mystic and an imam about the religious nicety of whether a prayer should be recited eleven or twelve times.

The tiny theological debate results in animosity and violence and when it is used as a political tool what follows is widespread death and destruction.

Brook attempts to show how individuals attempt to understand the realities of society, religion and politics but as one of his characters says,"There is your truth, my truth and the truth."

The play is not so much theatre as the slow unfolding of a fable. A group of men sitting in a space somewhere between dessert, village square and mosque reworking a tale which is centuries old as well as of today.

"Theoremat", based on a Pier Pasolini film of the 1960's would probably be categorised as being "Theatre of Despair" or "Theatre of Unfulfilled Dreams."

It concerns a wealthy man, his wife, two children and the maid. Over one day they are transformed or corrupted by an enigmatic visitor.

The transformation takes the form of seduction but it is not just a sexual awakening for each of the characters but rather they gain knowledge about themselves and their place in society.

At one level the play is a tirade against the excesses of capitalism but at another it is about the weakness of individuals to understand their need to play a role in their family and the wider society.

When the play opens the wealthy industrials tells us he will take questions before he proceeds. There are several questions from plants in the audience, the first one - "What do you think of New Zealand", gets the reply "I don't understand the question", this was followed by the serious one "Do you believe in god?" again "I dont understand the question"

That reply is at the heart of much of the play with the characters not understanding what their roles are. They are there in part to allow the audiences to observe and comment on their life so that when a final group of people onscreen are asked if they believe in miracles it is the audience who is being questioned - has what we have seen on the stage, the transformation of individuals, been a miracle, an awakening or a deception.

Throughout the play the audience are voyeurs of the family's dynamics, its secrets and its indiscretions. The characters in return acknowledge out presence even occasionally addressing us directly.

With the slowly evolving scenes the audience is able to concentrate on observing the characters, becoming aware of the stillness and spaces between them. It is the physical manifestation of the personal distance between the characters.

What gives the play its intensity and drama is the brilliant staging; a combination of lighting, music, sets and superb acting.

The lighting owes much to the original film and other Italian films of the 1960's but also the dramatic lighting of Hollywood films of the 1930'sw and 50's.

Each of the sequences is like an individual cinematic scene with each building on the other to create a frightening level of emotional complexity.

Possibly Richard Dawkins would quote from Peter Brook's mystic who replies to the question "What is god?" with the ambivalent statement "God is the embarrassment of the human mind."

The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy by Finnegan Kruckemeyer

directed by Andy Packer for Slingsby

Capital E until Sunday 21 March

Whimsical and offbeat shows are becoming a common feature at this year's International Arts Festival and The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy is no exception. The only difference is that it is a play for children.

The creation of Finegan Kruckemeyer and Andy Packer for children's theatre company Slingsby from Adelaide, Cheeseboy, which opened this weekend at Capital E, is a quirky tale narrated by Stephen Sheehan with the assistance of Sam McMahon and Roland Partis.

Within a tent-like structure set up within Capital E, Sheehan and his team, dressed in Victorian costumes, regale the audience with their story from the front of the tent, which is strewn with Victorian-like bric-a-brac.

This is his playground, Sheehan tells the audience. From here he gently and rhythmically narrates how Cheeseboy, living on a planet of cheese, is the only survivor when the planet is hit by a meteor and turned into a fondue, and how he then embarks on a series of adventures looking for his missing parents.

He lands on Earth, on a beach, and spends his time making paper boats that he hopes will sail away to bring them back.

He eventually gives up on this idea and, with the aid of a couple of gypsies, heads inland to the towns in search of his parents.

He lands on Earth, on a beach, and spends his time making paper boats that he hopes will sail away to bring them back.

He eventually gives up on this idea and, with the aide of a couple of gypsies, heads inland to the towns in search of his parents.

Using theatrical devices such as film projections, finger puppets, magical suitcases, sandcastles and imaginative and evocative lighting, and aided by Quentin Grant's rich and emotive soundscape, Cheeseboy's story slowly unfolds.

The music and lighting work well. The lighting verges on the dark side of dim and the devices have a certain captivating effect on the younger members of the audience. The writing has a certain lyricism about it.

But Sheehan's laidback narrative style fails to gain any momentum or create any drawing power as a good storyteller should.

One of the group has been quoted as saying the production is "soft, not in-your-face", which it certainly isn't and may well be why it appeals to its target market of younger viewers.

The 14-year-old accompanying this reviewer said that Cheeseboy was a "cool" show, the coming-of-age story intriguing and that the inventive effects greatly enhanced the story, which probably means that the approach taken with this production has worked.

It Was 40 Years Ago Today

T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T.
A TR Warszawa Production
13, 14, 16-19 March, 8pm
TSB Bank Arena

The 1960s were a highwater mark for the kind of glacially-paced and existentially introspective cinema that hardly anyone makes - or watches - any more, and no one made those movies quite like the Italians: think of directors such as Visconti, Antonioni, Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Polish theatre director Grzegorz Jarzyna has adapted Pasolini's 1968 film Theorem as T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T., which makes an odd sort of counterpoint to the earlier festival show Sound of Silence. The two Eastern European theatre companies present very different takes on sex and the social changes of the 1960s.

In both productions, sex is a subversive act, but in Silence it was the dourly authoritarian surveillance state machinery of the USSR that was subverted. T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T. makes almost the reverse case, documenting the disintegration of the members of a wealthy Italian family after a visitor comes to stay and seduces each of them in turn, exposing them to the possibility of personal self-fulfilment and a life outside the conventions and compulsions of the family, the law and the capitalist economy.

If anything locates the production most specifically in the 1960s, other than the immaculately modernist set design and costumes, it's the idea that sex could pose a threat to the consumer society and advanced capitalism. You only have to look to Italy in 2010, where president Silvio Berlusconi's party is accused of death - murdered in 1975, ostensibly at the hands of a young man he picked up for sex but long suspected to have been politically motivated. (Pasolini had called for the leaders of Italy's ruling right-wing party to be put on trial, something that Berlusconi is still, 40 years later, trying to avoid.)

So for all that T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T. may be something of a period piece, it's a reminder that even the discredited ideas of history (Pasolini was both a Catholic and a marxist) can have new things to show us.

One thing I appreciated about T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T. was its relentless thoroughness in documenting the characters' decline. The visitor leaves about half way through, and during the second half (though there is no interval) whenever you think things can't get any worse for the ones left behind - they do.

The play is mostly wordless, but towards the end words come thick and fast. Too quickly for me to really take in the subtitled text, enjoy those glorious consonant-rich Polish voices and absorb the sparse yet complex staging. Perhaps it didn't matter too much: the verbal imagery mirrored the aircraft take-off electronic sheen of the score, eventually sweeping away the debris of repression and existential crisis to leave us on a surprisingly optimistic note, with birds singing on the telephone wires and a plea - is this the real legacy of the 1960s? - to "Love, Love".

Ideas worlds apart but here the twain shall meet

Much of New Zealand's colonial history has been recorded from a British perspective, yet few probably realise that a prominent American travelling through the country in the mid-1890's made some rather astute observations on our race relations, whcih didn't go down well with his fellow Europeans.

The American was Mark Twain, on a worldwide speaking tour to raise money to pay off debts. Arriving in New Zealand, he visited many towns, including Whanganui, which is where David Geary obtained ideas for his play Mark Twain & Me in Māoriland.

Yet while the play shows us Twain's attitudes toward colonialism, organised religion and racism, he almost becomes superfluous, his writings acting as a mirror to reflect what was happening in Whanganui at the time.

And it is the Maori aspect at the heart of the play that works most successfully. In a series of vignettes using various types of theatre styles, including vaudeville, Western-style movies, narrative and mixing dramatic realism with elements of the surreal, numerous incidences occuring in Whanganui at that time are portrayed.

Symbols of the present are also incorporated into the production, such as the bright orange plastic bag over Twain's head and the half-filled plastic water bottle as a paddle, the sound of the water sloshing most effective.

Considered a superstar of the period, Twain (Stephen Papps) is introduced at various times to the populace of Whanganui during entertainment evenings at the Oddfellows Hall. he is taken up the river, then spends much of his time observing and writing about what he sees and hears.

The simple set of a large white canvas across the stage running right up to the back wall and beyond - no doubt symbolising the river - with black curtains is effectively used by the confident and spirited cast.

Under John Bolton's direction, they bring much physicality and dexterity to their perfomances. The hilarious vaudeville double act of the Anglican priest (Aaron Cortesi) and Catholic priest (Allan Henry) is in complete contrast to the creative and dramatic battle on Moutoa Island between the Hauhau and local Whanganui Maori with Ra (Maaka Pohatu), assisted by Piki (Ngapaki Emery), leading the charge in spectacular fashion.

And although the many threads don't always weave this production into a satisfying whole, it is nevertheless another commendable New Zealand production giving a fascinating insight into a little-known piece of history that resonates as much with today as it does with the past, aptly summed up in the words of Mark Twain - history may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme a lot.

T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T. written and directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna

TSB Bank Arena, until March 19

I propose a boycott of TSB Arena as a venue for theatrical productions until something is done about the seating, particularly as T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T. lasts for 130 minutes and has no interval to stretch one's legs.

Having got that off my chest, I have to report that T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T. is, at one level, pretty tough going. Its insipration comes from Teorema, Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1968 cult movie, of which a noted acerbic film critic said that, if it was not the worst film ever made, "you can't blame it for not trying."

A more puzzled critic described it as "perversely difficult", but went on to write that "it is serene, that it is ridiculous, that it has the power at some subterranean level to remain in your memory long after you think you've dismissed it".

Polish director Grzegorz Jarzyna's stage adaptation follows the film's plot closely: a rich industrialist's family is disrupted when a complete stranger walks into his home and proceeds to seduce one and all. When the stranger mysteriously leaves, the industrialist, his wife, son, daughter and the maid go to pieces.

Who is the visitor? Pasolini said he was a hypothesis and that he represents the divine, and that his film was largely about the cage of words in which we are all ensnared.

The film has apparently only 923 words in it; the stage version probably has a few more (there are surtitles) but the speech is not important - except at the beginning and end - images are. The director is reported as saying the family reflects contemporary society and at the root of it is the growing concept of consumerism.

The play begins and ends with a press conference in which the industrialist, who has given his factory to the workers as a result of the stranger's visit, is questoned about miracles, God, captialism and morality.

At the start he answers arrogantly, at the end his answers reflect what he has learnt from the stranger: we have all lost our way.

The connection between what is said at the last press conference and the scenes of a sterile, moribund family life seem to me to be tenuous. Sex with the stranger, which Pasolini described as metaphorical, makes them all see their lives differently, though why they behave as they eventually do is never made clear.

However, while the play remains an irritating puzzle, the setting, staging, lighting, music and the acting are without doubt quite wonderful and will remain long in my memory.

Auckland's Nightsong Productions and Theatre Stampede have premiered in Wellington a joyous, theatrical tour de force.

A triumph in 360 degrees, it has the brilliant conceit of being staged with the audience in the round, planted on swivel chairs while the action occurs on a circular ramp around them. This could so easily have been a case of style over substance, but instead the work's strength is that content, form and structure reflect each other beautifully.

Writers Carl Bland and Peta Rutter have woven a surreal, multi-layered meditation on life's circular shape and unpredictable motion through the familiar story of a son leaving home and then trying to find his way back again. It is like a rich, lyrical interior monologue brought to fantastical showbiz life by a travelling troupe of players in a dream pavilion.

Matching the script's almost Joycean rhapsodic absurdist tangents, an outstanding creative team throw every visual theatre trick in the book into the ring.

Movement, puppetry, object theatre and a smart 360 degree soundscape and lighting design amplify the work's joyous celebration of the adventurousness needed to make leaps into the unknown in life.

It has all the magic of an old fashioned children's pop-up storybook.

Centred around a circus family - in which there is no mother but instead an adorable lifelike performing seal (one of a number of pieces of gorgeous puppetry) - the eldest son Gee leaves only to find life is a series of returns. Gee is played by three different actors at different stages of life, sometimes all on stage at the same time. Beautifully cast, the company are an adventurous mix of seasoned professionals and talented newcomers. All shine.

In the manner of a circle the play is about how life can be seen as starting and returning to the same place. With the actors popping up and strolling around you, you have to constantly readjust your position in relation to everybody else. It can feel like being in the barrel of a camera, time spinning backwards and forwards. This echoes 360's exploration of how, as the world spins, time has a habit of catching up with itself. Your memories start to overlay each other to cause strange subconscious meetings.

The text contains echoes of the movement of the work itself, noting for example that a character is "swinging wildly between subjects", "constantly spinning, not going anywhere" or that "when you're going this fast you can't quite focus on what's going past the window". Comments like these provide some comfort as you struggle to follow the story, echoing the jumpy nature of the work's construction.

The narrative detail is very hard to follow. This is particularly the case with the eldest Gee who plays a narrator who isn't in control of the telling of his own story (no disrespect to Bruce Phillips's strong performance in the role). He is more like an absurdist echo of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, submerged in memory, playing tapes of his younger self over and over.

*360 runs from March 12-21 at Te Whaea, as part of the NZ International Arts Festival in Wellington.

Call it Festival fever or madness, but we're making a limited amount of $20* tickets available for 48 hours for four fabulous shows to celebrate the last few days of the 2010 Festival. It's your last chance to soak up the Pacific Blue Festival Club before we bring it all down after the final show on 21 March.

*Important stuff
- Service fees will apply
- Tickets are limited
- This offer runs from Fri 12 Mar, 6pm until Sun 14 Mar, 6pm or until allocation sold out.
- Tickets available for sale through Ticketek

WED 17 MAR, 10.15pm Enter the Dragon with Karsh Kale & Midival Punditz
Bruce Lee's cult movie with a kickin' new soundtrack performed live.
THU 18 MAR, 7.30pm St Vincent
Award-winning Texan musician Annie Clark is the next big thing, her music is an indie dreamscape of precise pop songs and big, swoony ballads.
THU 18 MAR, 10.15pm Frisky & Mannish
Experience Frisky and Mannish's School of Pop and you will never think of Michael Jackson or The Bangles the same way again!
SAT 20 MAR, 7.30pm Los Amigos Invisibles
Check out these Latin Grammy winners as they mix their infectious blend of Latin rhythms, funk, disco and acid jazz with the flavour of their native Venezuela.

Good theatre makes the world go round

360

Created and directed by Carl Bland, Ben Crowder and Peter Rutter

Te Whaea National Dance and Drama Cenre, until March 19

One thing that is absolutely clear about New Zealand's theatrical contribution to the 2010 International Arts Festival so far is that it has been outstanding. Shows such as The Letter Writer, Apollo 13, The Arrival and Ship Songs demonstrate an achievement of a high order. One can now add 360 to this impressive list.

Our old inferiority complex of not being quite good enough when we compare ourselves with overseas efforts is long dead. We have a flowering of wit, imagination, and skill in staging and performance that we should be celebrating. And we should be doing that in the best way possible which is by attending the performances.

360 is a collaboration between two Auckland-based theatre companies and its novelty, which, by the way, isn't a gimmick, is that the audience, limited to 85, is seated on swivel chairs and sits in a circle surrounded by the circular stage.

Just as I got over my childish desire to swing my seat round and round just for the hell of it, the play started with a wonderfully old-fashioned family circus act that had me fooled for a second or two that a live seal was on stage too. The seal and later a bird are scene stealers but then so is each member of the cast.

The story covers 50 years and is about a man called Gee who is looking back on his life and what happened to him when, as a young man, he left his family and the circus to make a fortune, find fame, and live his own life. He is played old by Bruce Phillips, middle-aged by Edwin Wright, and young by Milo Cawthorne.

Eventually he returns (a nicely staged railway scene) and comes to realise that, as a Tom Stoppard character says, "a circle is the longest distance to the same point". During this journey – Gee calls it "a walk" – he is looking for himself and the love that once enveloped him.

On the way we see a knife-throwing act that looks remarkably real, Gee's sister being shot across our heads as a cannon ball, and occasional glimpses of the moon; and film of a man jumping off the Eiffel Tower; and Ray Henwood as the father amusingly pottering on dispensing advice on everything; while Olivia Tennet appears as a chanteuse singing Maybe God is Sexually Shy; and Edwin Wright rattles off a vibrant song-and-dance act.

At times the show is not always clear in its intentions, but it gave this slightly jaded theatregoer a gloriously entertaining 70 minutes.

Way back in the 1970s I was lucky enough to see two landmark productions directed by Peter Brook: his black box 'circus' version of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the RSC, with Alan Howard's Oberon on a trapeze, and The Conference of the Birds, based on an ancient Persian poem and developed during his fabled African sojourn (with a young Helen Mirren included in the multi-cultural ensemble cast).

I still recall the seismic shift the latter caused in western theatre. We were already breaking the bounds of conventional drama and challenging the status quo; Brook in many ways led 'the establishment' into riding the 'alternative/underground' groundswell into respectability. But it was The Conference of the Birds that reconnected us with the primal roots of storytelling and theatre's role in revitalising ancient wisdoms in our own quest for enlightenment.  

Am I expecting too much, then, of 11 and 12? I wouldn't have thought so, even if Peter Brook is 85 now. If ever we needed a play that threw light on the apparently unstoppable phenomenon of religious wars, tribal massacres and sectarian violence that litter our news media every day, it is now. And who better than Brook to play midwife to a play sourced from the true life experiences of Sufi mystic Tierno Bokar?

The set is redolent of The Conference, with its earth-red stage cloth, sky-red backcloth and stylised tree trunks, although here it is not 'in the round' but framed within the proscenium arch of the very conventional St James theatre. A cluster of Eastern musical instruments, downstage left, promises live music - and so it transpires, from composer Toshi Tsuchitori: a variously vivid and subcutaneous soundscape for the story.

The well-publicised premise is that a difference of opinion as to whether a prayer should be recited 11 or 12 times escalates into - or primes the pump of - hatred and violence in French colonial Africa. I had wondered if it would be an absurdist satire like The Gods Must Be Crazy but no, this play and production takes itself very seriously, although it is not without humour.

There are stories within stories. Initially Tunji Lucas, in the role of Amkoullel, acts a narrator as the process by which the 11 prayer format accidentally became 12 is acted out by the ensemble cast. Later the narrator function will be randomly distributed, disspating any sense of authorial perspective.

Meanwhile the Sufi mystic Tierno Bokar (Makram J Khoury) uses a sand-pouring ritual to discover and appoint Cherif Hamallah (Khalifa Natour) as his 'true tutor' successor, although Hamallah says it is too soon ... Being teachers, "Let me tell you a story" prefaces many a fable told to illustrate a point and make us ponder.

The French administration - characterised as two-dimensional bastards no matter who wears the jackets of office - has its own ideas about who should teach what to whom. And for them the status quo is 12, so anyone suggesting a return to the original 11 comes to be seen as an enemy of the state.

Nevertheless the 11s and 12s manage to coexist, happily tolerating each other's beliefs, until "the teapot incident" ...

Now let me be clear: I am very happy to accommodate the leisurely pace, punctuated by very occasional bursts of more lively action, sometimes comical, sometimes violent. I appreciate the simple ways such things as a boat are created. And there is plenty of time to consider, objectively, what is unfolding ... so I can't help wondering, about half-an-hour in, how credible this 'teaching tale' can be when women have no status in its universe.

Mothers, wives and children do get mentioned but they have no involvement in 'the important things in life', whether it is ruling the state, seeking enlightenment or teaching wisdom. The only significant female character to physically appear is the wife - played somewhat for laughs by one of the seven male actors - in 'the teapot incident'. She wilfully and vengefully manipulates the situation in a way that foments distrust and bitterness between the 11s and 12s.

While this form of theatre is devoid of 'get it' moments (probably regarded as being too manipulative of the sincere and worshipful theatregoer), I think - on reflection - that the play is suggesting the escalation of hatred and violence is caused by two things: the divide-and-rule tactics of the French administration, and the inevitability of the disempowered, disenfranchised and downtrodden taking their anger out on something relatively innocent.

This is reasonably clear when it comes to the ethnic majority and religious minority, and I suppose one could apply it to the women too, except because they have no 'real' presence in the play, it's just an academic corollary.

It is also interesting to note that those in power seem to be the most angry of all, and although we might have all sorts of theories about that, the play doesn't begin to explore that - perhaps because that would mean humanising the 'baddies' (which most modern dramatisations do so that we can see the potential for evil within ourselves).  

We are left, then, with this steadily rolled-out story punctuated by tales of snakes, hyenas, moons and butterflies, and towards the end someone asks, "Where is the truth?" Exactly.

What seems to start as investigation into one of the more imponderable aspects of human existence drifts on, in its final stretch, to simply dramatise the late life, death and burial of Tierno Bokar, which is somewhat beside the point. It loses sight of it theatrical purpose and wanders back into the biography that inspired it.

Put it this way: when it comes to revitalising ancient tales in the light of today's world, Indian Ink's The Guru of Chai is infinitely more insightful, profound, provocative, enlightening and (therefore) entertaining. And as socio-political and poetic theatre, Juliet O'Brien's The Letter Writer is much more powerful.

The jewel in India's crown

Ravi Shankar with Anoushka Shankar

Michael Fowler Centre, Friday 12, 2010

This beautiful evening of Indian classical music – two sitars, tabla, flute, treble and bass tanpura – will be remembered as one of life's treasures by the delighted capacity audience who gave generous standing ovations.

There can be no doubting the greatness of the occasion. The legendary Ravi Shankar is close to 90 years old, yet brings a joyous and youthful energy to his performance. His genial personality is immediately apparent, and it is clear we are watching an artist whose lifetime's quest – to introduce audiences outside India to the splendid traditions of classical music that his country developed – has made him a happy man.

His striking daughter Anoushka, not yet 30, follows her father's path in command of the instrument, yet has her own fresh spirit and style. Each speaks an introduction to the raga and tala in a brief description that makes the fabulously intricate complexities of this music seem, however fleetingly, accessible and comprehensible. They pay us the compliment of expecting us to trust them, and we do.

Sitar strings make shimmering and cascading poetry, inviting you to dream and float in the tumble of their silver sound. This only happens, of course, because of the unimpeachable technique of the playing. Then there's a climax of thwacking, striking beats that pulls a meditative piece back to a strong and confident conclusion. The drone of tanpura makes a steady background wash, to keep the light and shade of the music in tandem.

The wooden flute, played by Ravichandra Kulur, has a warm and wonderful sonority.

Tabla is played by Tanmoy Bose, with such clear and thrilling dexterity, his hands like hummingbird wings, or soft as water, at times seemingly boneless, moving at speeds that defy belief across beat to half-beat, threading several layers of rhythms together into a weave that would tip and toss and fling away dull care, though soon replacing that with a vitality of pulse and the excitement of sensing your own heart beat.

We are often counselled not to let emotions get the better of us. This music works alchemy, inviting us to do just that. Sheer magic (though not forgetting the thousand, thousand hours of devoted training and practice needed to bring a musician to this point of competence). O India.

11 and 12 travels to New Zealand carrying a lot of cultural baggage. Ironic given that over forty years ago director Peter Brook arguably revolutionised the British stage with the concept of the empty space.

In terms of baggage not only has it taken this time for a Peter Brook production to come here - hence building quite a mystique - there's also this work's long gestation through several other works in Paris, and the fact that it's an English translation of a French adaptation of an African writer Amadou Hampaté Bâ's own autobiographical writing - drawing on the complex politics and spiritual divides of early 20th century French colonial administered Mali.

Then there's the fact that it's all brought to life by a truly multicultural cast. All this might leave you feeling you need to go along to this production very well read and able to nod knowledgeably at appropriate moments.

Not so. Brook's mastery continues to be finding direct, elegant, quiet and simple ways to present complex things. One of 11 and 12's strengths is that it's simple, but not simplistic. It teases out complexities, with theatre playing a storytelling role of providing fables out of detail that rise above life's complications.

Universal truths are revealed from specific circumstances, in this case Ba's own story of being born into a tradition African village, entering brutal French colonial administration, and encountering two remarkable spiritual leaders.

The title of the work comes from a dispute over whether a prayer should be recited eleven or twelve times. This is a dispute that Ba as principal narrator says sees "a bead turn into a bomb". Religious and political war arises from the simplest of dogmatic disagreements.

All the varied cultural elements that construct this work help to emphasise that it is about being able to rise above cultural, spiritual and racial differences to find peace in the world. The work quietly and gently exemplifies in every way its most common action - that expressed in the Christian church in the words "peace be with you".

You may expect, however, a weightier and more significant theatre experience than this work actually provides. 11 and 12 is an unusually understated work in an arts festival programme. At the work's conclusion there was a silence in the auditorium before the applause. I took this to be a sign that the atmosphere had shifted to quiet contemplation. Others have described the work as soporific. My feelings are more mixed.

Yes, the work is small and not particularly emotionally effecting. Ultimately it is too uninvolving. It provides room to muse but there's little time to grow any attachment to the characters as it jumps from one story to the next.

Yet the cast are excellent and there is a beauty in its almost untheatrical - plain but ingenious - presentation, relying on the beautiful use of a few basic props. Then there's the gorgeous unobtrusive live soundscape by Japanese composer Toshi Tsuchitori (who has been with Brook since 1976), employing an arsenal of small instruments.

Being untheatrical isn't a problem with Brook, it's the fact that as a play 11 and 12 is rather undramatic. This is particularly the case in the last half hour, where it feels like the movement of its story has been completed. It's at this point a reverence takes over and the discussion onstage tends to become more internal. I struggled at times to hear the actors with clarity, particularly past the accents of the two great Palestinian actors playing the two Sufi mystics, Makram J. Khoury as Tierno Bokar and Khalifa Natour as Cherif Hamallah.

11 and 12's interest as a piece of writing is in part its polished plainness. Kernels of wisdom, rather than poetic fireworks, shine through, revealing the work's thematic integrity. After one petty incident for example where, abhorring what he sees, Ba must make a choice about continuing to work where he does, he is offered the advise "purity is in the man, not in the place". Thoughts like these ring out.

The production's greatest strength is its internal intellectual integrity, and this translates through to the way the company works together. It is able to be pan-spiritual and pan-global whilst paying respect to different beliefs and not being some wishy-washy hippy melange of beliefs. It is political theatre at its most quiet.

Currently it's fashionable in Europe to dramatize novels, even vast, complex novels that do not rely on dialogue and weave together so many narratives and motifs that it seems impossible to unravel a major strand. One such novel is Amadou Hampaté Bâ's autobiographical "Amkoullel L'Enfant Peul" and I only realized that "11&12", Peter Brook's new production, is based on this memoir when early on the unforgettable story of an African child's fascination with the excrement of the white man is retold (is it white like the skin? or is it, what surprise and delight, as black the excrement of the black boy). Hampaté Bâ, one of West Africa's foremost authors, aimed to merge his personal education sentimentale with a reflection on the multi-facetted traditions and composite cultures of his native Mali, a country as diverse as any in the world, especially in the religious sphere. Animistic elements and Sufi mysticism have formed syncretic local beliefs and rituals that have withstood the pressure of foreign ideology, be it after the Moroccan invasion of 1591, the French colonialism between 1880 and 1960 as well as the more recent Wahhabi presence. Add to this a most lively griot culture (tapestries of oral transmission) and an amazing musical scene, and you can well imagine what wealth of stories and references make up the two volumes of Hampaté Bâ's novel and how difficult it must have been to stage this. Peter Brook has chosen an anecdotal approach, a theatrical version of a tasting session, and he has come up with a décor of beautiful simplicity, three trees and a red cloth that is transformed as the drama requires into a boat or a graveyard. The 75 minutes of the play are interspersed with aphorisms, epigrams and maxims that range from intriguing ("God is the embarrassment of the human mind") and truly wise ("The truth belongs to no one") to the banal and oblique. (However, I do think that the audience in the St. James Theatre was treated to a more profound discourse on religion than the vastly greater number of people that listened at the same time to Richard Dawkins). Also admirable was the beautifully understated music by a Japanese master of many instruments. At the end of the evening one was left with a sense of bewilderment. The reasons for religious conflict and sectarian violence were boiled down to a division over whether to repeat a certain prayer eleven or twelve times, a ridiculously tiny disagreement were it not for the Sufi love of numeric mysticism on one hand and the political and historical battles between the different sects and groups on the other hand that are all but invisible in Peter Brook's play. Thus a production that certainly wanted to highlight an unknown heritage ended up doing it a disservice by omitting most of the context and complexity that would have made the exotic approachable and understandable (the wrong depiction of the Islamic ablution is inexcusable, a simple query would have set things right; Brook repeats the mistakes of Hollywood that never ever gets the Islamic rituals right). As so often in such "multi-cultural" efforts, there is a lot of looking up to and looking down on, but very little looking at the Other.

As a band, Calexico is perfectly named: their music is a road trip to the cinematic imagination. It takes us to Calexico, a sun-bleached crossroads where a fleapit theatre plays Sergio Leone and John Ford westerns on permanent loop. Where the panoramic horizon stares back, sometimes with dread, but mostly with hope. But Calexico's music isn't restricted to the familiar, like an indie-rock version of Ennio Morricone. It takes any route that looks promising.

From Tucson, Arizona, and almost constantly on the road, Calexico get back to where they once belonged, in their dreams. To Mexican weddings, border crossings, town squares where grandparents oversee untamed children. Then there will be a sudden, unexpected detour, and that low-stringed electric guitar switches stations from El Paso to indie rock FM. Whereas Los Lobos never forget their R&B roots, Calexico reveal a student band's cerebral self-consciousness.

A seven-piece, the band is still dominated by the two men who founded the group in 1990. Joey Burns takes the stage first, opening delicately with 'Bisbee Blue': just his Spanish nylon-stringed guitar, supported by Paul Niehaus's unshowy pedal steel. While Burns is the earnest frontman, as the evening progresses it's apparent that the backbone of the group is its drummer and co-founder, John Convertino.

He is that rarity, a discreet drummer and expert backseat driver, controlling the shifts from festive dances to moody epics, never overplaying his hand.

Calexico's point-of-difference is its celebration of Mexican-American flavours, in particular the mariachi trumpets from Martin Wenk and Jacob Valenzuela. Especially effective in syncopation with Convertino, the shrill horns emphasise the Latin rhythms, and create a party atmosphere hampered by the tiered, cramped seating of the makeshift Pacific Blue "club". For the band is playing to the converted, and it is their instrumentals that get the best reaction. Guitar twangs and big-echo whistling, whip-cracks and rodeo yelps: so many cultural touchstones, conjured by musical triggers.

The more Calexico select from their Mexican musical menu, the richer the rewards. They almost transport us from our straightjacket seats, on a bleak Wellington evening, to a public party in the noonday sun.

The Arrival, by Shaun Tan, created by Kate Parker and Julie Nolan

directed Julie Nolan

Opera House, until March 14

Every immigrant's nightmare: arriving in a new country faced with a strange new language, people and customs and the highs and lows of dealing with all this strangeness.

As the title suggests, this is  exactly what Red Leap Theatre's production of The Arrival is all about. This is no harrowing story of a refugee family but a tale of one man's journey told in one of the most imaginative and innovative ways seen in a long while.

Beased on a book of the same name by Australian writer Shaun Tan, it not only recreates Tan's story but the creators of this show, Kate Parker and Julie Nolan, also emulate the surreal, dream-like imagery that he uses to illustrate his book.

It's a simple story of hope and fortitude overcoming hardship and insurmountable odds. A man leaves his wife and daughter for a better life in a faraway country so that one day they can join him and prosper from his new-found life.

Travelling across the ocean, he eventually arrives in this strange new world where he doesn't speak the language and where everything is unfamiliar. He has to relearn the basics of day-to-day living in an alien culture, with little or no help from those around him. Eventually, he succeeds in settling in and is reunited with his family.

From the moment the wonderfully 3D-like set of John Verryt unfolds, it is obvious that this is going to be an enthralling and magical journey. Almost wordless, the production use creatively choreographed movement and an amazing array of puppets, flying birds and ships, a mouse-like dog and many other objects, to tell the story. The originality of expressing the difficulty he has in dealing with everyday things is totally absorbing.

At times funny and at others poignantly emotional, greatly aided by Andrew McMillan's evocative soundscape, this childlike presentation, which is far from childish, captivates its audience from start to finish. The ensemble playing of the cast is excellent, not only in their energy and physicality but in the way they assist the transition of set and props from scene to scene seamlessly.

This New Zealand production has gained many accoladtes across the Tasman since its premiere in Auckland a year ago, and rightly so.

And like Apollo 13: Mission Control, it is equal to and in some cases better than overseas productions.

Amanda Fisher

A journey into the nebulous area between fiction and non-fiction is what awaited those at an audience with creative non-fiction authors Geoff Dyer and Philip Hoare in Writers and Readers Week.

The two British authors yesterday sounded like they were singing from the same song book for most of their conversation with New Zealand biographer Harry Ricketts at the Embassy Theatre, detailing similar journeys into their careers and practically identical philosophies on writing.

One thing that didn't match up was the authors' daily routines - Dyer labelling Hoare a "weirdo" for his detailed, compulsive daily routine, which starts at 5.30am and ends at 8.30pm (except on Christmas Day).

Both writers were taken with World War I, which inspired Dyer's The Missing of the Somme and Hoare's Wilde's Last Stand about collective memory of the war and its legacy.

"The thing (about the First World War is that it's so present, it"s nevery gone away," Dyer said.

"I think I'm particularly interested in places where time has stood its ground ... where the temporal is expressed in the geographical, where history becomes geography."

Hoare was fasciniated by the memories of the war which have left behind the ilegal clubs, drugs and transvestites which cropped up.

Dyer noted the similarities between himself and Hoare.

"I see us both as amateurs really.

"The academic route is encouraging you always toward greater and greater specialisation and (Philip) and I have just gone the other way."

both Hoare and Dyer have covered a vast range of subjects, from war to photography, the Victorian era to jazz, whales to travel.

"We have really needed to avoid any specialisation."

But that wasn't meant to sound ungrateful - "Although I'm not doing it, I'm very dependent on the labours of experts and specialists," Dyer said.

After two biographies, Hoare broke away from the form to play fast and loose with non-fiction. The technique earned praise from WG Sebald - the very writer who inspired it.

"After that I felt completely free to do what I wanted and that's really affected everything I have written since."

For two authors proud of their chronological accounts of history and novel book structures, it is fitting to leave their similar induction into writing untl last.

Dyer labels himself a "beneficiary of a particular historical moment", which began after he completed his university education in 1980 in London.

"I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to sign on for the dole."

Both Dyer and Hoare - who finished university the year before in 1979 - were coming of age in Thaterite Britain, when unemployment rates were high but the social welfare state was intact.

"The dole supported a whole generation of writers, artists, dancers."

My favourite message to theatre goers to switch off their mobile phones is at London's Festival Hall, where Gandalf himself, the fruity voice of Sir Iain McKellen, urges you to make sure yours is off. That's hard to beat and virtually worth the price of admission.

But Shaun Parker has a pretty cute way of doing it too: Larry, or at least the first guy we meet out of a troupe of likeably real dancers, just draws a phone on the huge blackboard wall of the set and then crosses it out. Simple. Then he draws a switch and activates the lighting and the show gets underway.

When I say likeably real I mean they come in all shapes sizes and colours and some of them are better dancers than others. Some have great fluidity, some are athletic, and some are just part of the pack. This is not a show about virtuosity, although there are a couple of outstanding solos and duets. It's more about dynamics, energy, playfulness and an engagement with the physical and how that makes us happy.It's the kind of happiness that is within reach of everyone, whether they are doing a morning stretch or surfing.

The program notes suggest distinctions between nine distinct personality types but I have to say that eluded me almost completely. I don't think they were sharply defined enough to identify; some shifted in an out of extrovert and introvert moods, but any deeper resonances or subtleties of character remained opaque .

So there's not much by way of idea , and certainly no narrative thread, just a series of moments loosely sewn together. Looseness of limb is one of the most appealing aspects of the show, and a certain innocent freshness, punctuated with something you don't see very often in the world of contemporary dance - smiles! Most serious choreographers prefer the face to be a blank canvas, as if the dancer felt no emotion and were moving almost like a machine, but these dancers remind us all the time that they- and we - are human. There's a charming trio of girls who go through a series of moves while laughing. Never seen that before. It's a perfect demonstration of the completely uncynical tone of this piece. There's also a lovely tender moment when a pratfalling rollerskater finds his balance and rhythm in an embrace which elegantly co- ordinates two sets of legs moving in time like oiled pistons of an engine.

Uncomplicated, vital, with moments of originality and humour, Happy as Larry is likeable though perhaps ten minutes longer than it needs to be.

Calexico

Pacific Blue Festival  Club, Thursday and Friday 11 & 12 March

Arizona-based alt-country ensemble Calexico was formed around the talents of songwriters Joey Burns (vocals, guitar) and John Convertino (drums): a floating cast fleshing out the live performances.

To call them an Americana group means stretching the definition to embrace mariachi-styled horn parps, searing slide and pedal-steel guitars, accordions and vibraphone. All of this is added, seamlessly, to the more obvious sounds of upright bass, accoustic and electric guitars and drum kit.

With six albums in a decade and a half, Calexico have moved from a darker folk music to bright, cascading world music; their most recent album, Carried To Dust, is an attempt to rekindle the magic of their near-perfect run between 1998 and 2004. It's a stronger collection than 2006"s misstep, Garden Ruin, but not quite up there with 2000's Hot Rail and 2003's Feast Of Wire.

Burns opens the show, accompanied by the steel guitar of Paul Niehaus. From there the full seven-piece band launched into the live staple, Quattro.

And it's obvious, instantly, that the magic of Calexico is in hearing the blend of all the parts. At times when the spotlight is focused on one instrument, whether trumpet, vibes or guitar, as good as the playing is, it can feel amost like a showband doing the runs. FAr more successful is when the ensemble works at the songs, which tumble from Burns' guitar strings and spill across Convertion's cymbals and toms. A waft of trumpet, a stab of steel guitar, the nodding double-bass peeking in between the spaces: this is what gives Claexico's music the overt cinmeatic feel - the wash of sounds combining so effortlessly to always feel both perfectly structured and ever-so-slightly improvised; the songs falling away, elegantly, at the end.

Two Silver Trees is a highlight from the new album. Again it is in the way the instrumental parts segue, diving off and away - it works every time. It gives the feeling of so many things being thrown at the canvas but there is no blurring of the colours, rather a subtle melding.

The Feast Of Wire tracks are highlights, most often, from Dub Latina to the encore of Not Even Stevie Nicks.

The rousing final encore, a brilliant cover of Love's Alone Again Or, is still the best song in this group's repertoire. It is the perfect showcase for everything brilliant this band does: punchy arrangements, smart, flowing, full of ideas - and the actual playing is often simple.

They have at least half a dozen brilliant songs of their own, too. And we got to hear them. Fans were happy. No reason not to be.

The Letter Writer

Written by: Juliet O'Brien

Directed by: Juliet O'Brien

Circa Theatre, until March 21, 2010

As their second Arts Festival entry (Mary Stuart being their first), Wellington’s Circa Theatre presents the New Zealand premiere of The Letter Writer, written and directed by Juliet O’Brien. Created in collaboration with France’s Plateforme Théâtre in 2008, The Letter Writer is O’Brien’s theatrical return to her Kiwi homeland and tells the story of a young man desperate to make a better life for himself by leaving his country for another. In exile, he employs a professional letter writer who helps him appeal for political asylum and also sends messages to his lover back home.

Peter Hambleton leads the New Zealand/French cast as the titular character Mr. Rouvesquen, a curmudgeonly professional who gave up his dreams of becoming an author for a career spent penning wedding toasts and obituaries. His office is a glum headquarters where he sits, drinks wine, and listens to the same piece of classical music over and over again in search of a ‘correct’ recording. A deeper loss is hinted at below his precise surface, and although Mr. Rouvesquen attempts to remain detached from his refugee client he is ultimately devastated by the young man’s plight.

O’Brien sets her drama in an imagined world, separating the action from contemporary politics. The Letter Writer plays like an extended metaphor, the conceit revolving around an inability for characters to communicate on their own without Mr. Rouvesquen’s semantic abilities. It is hard to believe a modern scenario wherein the 19th century figure of a letter writer would be so pivotal. Certainly in our Skype generation it is difficult to fathom outsourcing one’s love letters to an intermediary stranger – especially one who works only in English while you speak a different language (one that sounds strangely Eastern European).

As an allegory, The Letter Writer might work better if the politics were not overshadowed by these key incongruities in the plot. At the beginning of the play, Lansko departs from his lover Leila in search of a new homeland and we are left to wonder why he would leave her behind, especially with the vague threat of impending danger so close by?

The malleable props used in The Letter Writer were dwarfed by the Mary Stuart set which is still installed on the Circa stage. This forced the action downstage, and almost into audience – a gripping effect. O’Brien choreographed beautiful moments of transition to blend the world of Mr. Rouvesquen’s office with the ‘other’ land where Leila struggles against an unknown oppressor. Set to the original compositions of Stephen Gallagher, The Letter Writer works best in these moments of physical montage, expressing love and loss better than any dialogue could. In a very tender sequence the two lovers find each other beneath the sheets, and O’Brien uses theatrical magic to make characters appear and disappear – these superb transformations perhaps indicative of her French training.

Ultimately the script for The Letter Writer seemed a bit lost in translation, while the movement and style of the piece suggests a far deeper and more nuanced soul. The ambiguities distract from the heart of the play, a story about the power of language and a wordsmith whose latest job affects him far more personally than he has planned. At one point, Mr. Rouvesquen pulls a book from his desk drawer and stares into it as it begins to glow and light up his face. In that moment I wondered, what does he see?

11 and 12 by Marie-Helene Estienne

directed by Peter Brook

St James Theatre, til March 13

Since the 1960s, Peter Brook has benn searching for the essence of theatrical performance. His fervid dedication of almost monastic serverity has led him to question centuries of accumulated theatrical practices, beliefs and shibboleths.

The results of this search, which he has written about in several highly influential books, have been expressed with the simplicity and the complexity one usually associates with an Oriental spiritual text.

However, evertyhing he has written about is based on his explorations and experiemtns in numberous stage productions, which he prefers to call "recherche theatricale" , the most famous of which are Orghast, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Marat/Sade, The Conference of the Birds and The Mahabharata.

11 and 12, his latest work based on the writings of Amadou Hampate Ba and his teacher, Sufi philosopher Tierno Bokar, is hihgly topical in that it deals with fanaticism, though it is a true story set in 1930s Mali - then under French colonial rule.

It all centres on a small dispute over whether an Islamic prayer, The Pearl of Perfection, should be repeated 11 or 12 times.

The dispute escalates, massacres happen, many people are improsioned by the French colonial government, which backs one side against the other, which it trets ruthlessly.

It is a tale told with childlike simplicity about the need for tolerance, the need to hold on to one's own truths and respect others' truths, or as Tierno Bokar says at one point: "There is my truth, your truth, and the truth."

A multinational cast of seven male actors play all the roles, which they present boldly, and, in keeping with the overall style of the production, with quiet dignity and simplicity.

The lighting of the almost empty stage is breathtakingly beautiful, while the playing of Toshi Tsuchitori's music and sound effects at the side of the stage is exquisite and masterly.

However, all this stripping away of superfluous human and thearical details, which might get in the way of the essential story and its message, and the calmness and simplicity of the dialogue and the playing of nearly all the scenes at much the same tempo and volume have a soporific effect.

it also brought to mind the ponderous and santimonious religiosity of epics that Hollywood used to make back in the 1950s. At the end the lights did not dim and there was a long silence before anyone dared applaud. It was like being in church, which is where, of course, theatre started.

Mary Stuart

Written by: Friedrich Schiller
In a new version by: David Harrower
Directed by: Ross Jolly
Circa Theatre, until 21st of March

Wellington’s Circa Theatre is staging Mary Stuart at the 2010 New Zealand International Arts Festival using a 2006 adaptation of Fredrick Schiller’s classic by Scottish playwright David Harrower (Blackbird). At a sprawling 2 hours and 45 minutes, this production is a protracted political struggle set in the late 1500’s, told through an imagined encounter between two Queens. Threatened by her cousin’s rising power, Queen Elizabeth arrests and imprisons Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Surrounded by male advisors, Elizabeth struggles to decide Mary’s fate, balancing her romantic jealousy with Britain’s best interests.

Tina Regtien tackles the role of Mary with a stoic self-righteousness that leaves us wondering how innocent she truly is. Mary seems resigned to wander the grounds of Fotheringay Castle awaiting her eventual execution, yet her captivity is positively bustling with drama. She is accompanied by her diligent maid Jane Kennedy (Darien Takle), and visited by a number of men including the duplicitous Lord Kent (Nick Dunbar) and her admirer and convert Mortimer (Nathan Meister). Mary continues to plot her return to the throne along with her dwindling group of loyal subjects, which leaves us wondering what she could be capable of. Regtien does little to make Mary a sympathetic character though, and instead delivers her monologues with a smugness that we hope expedites her end.

Schiller’s play may follow Mary’s last days, but it is Elizabeth that struggles with her own rise to power in the face of her cousin’s downfall. Pitting the two Queens against one another are a bevy of advisors, potential lovers, and a visiting French envoy, all set to convince Elizabeth of the need for Mary’s death. Queen Elizabeth considers her royal decree swarmed by men, each with their own agenda.

Carmel McGlone embodies Elizabeth with a ferocity undermined by Ross Jolly’s direction. Heightening the sense of claustrophobia in Westminster Palace, Jolly stages Mary Stuart in what appears to be a constant corridor –dialogue exchanged by characters in a line up, or semi-circular formation, occasional moving to be seated. While perhaps this minimal intervention was intended focus us on the script, rife as it is with florid speeches and blazing dialogue, but instead all encounters were rendered equally banal and lacking impetus. When Elizabeth was alone on stage there were a few moments of genuine connection as McGlone turned to the audience and bared her conscience. I found it strange that Regtien did not find similar opportunities to engage with us in her monologues, as these exchanges can draw us in to the action and tell us more about the character than any action sequence.

In their modernized Mary Stuart, Circa confines the drama to a stage left bare save a few wooden benches. Three evenly spaced monoliths create the impression of doors along the back wall, and give the spooky feeling of a constant presence watching from offstage as the intrigue unfolds. The costumes designed by Gillie Coxill are a mix of contemporary business casual suits for the men with elaborate period costumes for the women – an odd mélange. Was this meant symbolize the isolation and repression of the Queens in contrast to the world of men in power around them? The lack of props and set changes contribute to a general sense of monotony in the onstage action, and again, while the text can be compelling, I wished that Jolly would inject other ways for us to access the play besides merely listening.

While the hypothetical history of Mary Stuart sizzles with political intrigue and sexuality, Circa’s production plays it safe and loses its nerve.

Circa Theatre is one of New Zealand’s oldest theatres and has been home to some of the country’s most influencial theatre-makers since 1976. The 2010 New Zealand International Arts Festival showcases a feast of music, theatre, dance, literature and visual arts as artists from around the globe gather in Wellington from 26 February – 21 March.

Welcome home for charming tale of love and fishing

He Reo Aroha, by Miria George and Jamie McCaskill, directed by Hone Kouka

Soundings Theatre, March 9 and 10, 2010

Otaki College, Otaki, March 11, 2010

Pataka Museum, Porirua, March 12 and 13, 2010

It's possible that He Reo Aroha has been performed overseas more often than it has been here. It must be pleasing for the performers and crew to have a full house on home ground at Te Papa's Soundings Theatre respond with the acclaim that they received last night.

In a bare-bones production under Hone Kouka's smooth direction, He Reo Aroha is a simple, unpretentious story of love lost and regained. It is told in song, in scenes of warm comedy, and one scene of dramatic action in a storm on a fishing boat.

Two chairs and three guitars are all the props that Kali Kopae and Jamie McCaskill have to tell the love story of Kaia and Pascoe, childhood sweethearts who grew apart when Kaia went off to the bright lights of New York pursuing her career as a singer.

The varied waiata (traditional, folky, modern) are by Kopae, McCaskill, and Hone Hurihanganui. They are sung with a pleasing clarity and an emotional undertow that kept the audience entranced, and the numerous characters in Ti Kapa, the marae, and in the fish factory, where Kaia's friends and family work, were instantly recognised as familiar types by the appreciative and amused audience.

The funniest sequence was when Kaia and Pascoe are tricked into meeting each other after Kaia's return from New York. Both actors keep changing their characters, with McCaskill at times changing into a female cousin setting up the meeting, while Kopae plays Rangi, Pascoe's best friend and workmate on his fishing boat.

This 80-minute show is built around the undoubted talents of its charismatic performers and they make and impressive team imbued with charm, humour and enviable talent.

New Zealand String Quartet: Ten

Schubert: Quartet in G Minor/Bb major
Alban Berg: String Quartet Opus 3
Ross Harris: The Abiding Tides (world premiere)
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 11 in F minor Opus 95 with Jenny Wollerman (soprano)
Wellington Town Hall
7 March

Programmed from the odd concept of the number ten being the year the tunes were written, a magical yet rather uneven afternoon string soiree ensued. The perspective of the musicians seemed to range from “this piece is sublime and I am hearing it for the first time shimmering from my instrument in four dimensional counterpoint” to “this piece is trite, I shall try to extract what dry witticism from its pale husk as one can manage”. Although the programming was rather mixed up, my preference was basically chronological, that is to say being for the more recent pieces.

The group themselves are remarkable, each musician channelling etherically around the centre of the sound, with jabbing clarity and much practiced incisions into the patient corpse of the great repertoire. The phrasing dovetails nicely and the personalities of each musician blend night and light into the sound they produce. Listening to the NZSQ is a similar experience to quaffing a very good tea on a very good day on the crocket lawn at government house.

The second piece by Alban Berg (1910) was absolutely outstanding as the composition and its willing string wizards stirred the bones with relish and sublime caress. The geometry of Berg’s harmonic concept was revealed afresh as a wonder of clean structure and mystic dancing animation of sound. Wellington composer Ross Harris contributed a marvellous work (2010 and long may he serve) with soprano Jenny Wollerman commandeering the texture and tonality within a strange yet captivating intonation. Vincent O’Sullivan’s lyric on this piece provided an interesting and dark little listen.

The programme was rounded out by Beethoven's Quartet # 11 (1810) which the quartet snacked delightfully, and a piece by Schubert (1810 and the shiniest shoe), this performance turning in a dull autopsy, not at all in keeping with the earlier animation of Berg's spectral presence.

Crowd laps it up as the groove bubbles over

Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra

Pacific Blue Festival Club, Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, formerly just Antibalas, is a 10-piece ensemble dedicated to the groove-heavy Afrobeat genre, essentially a melding of jazz and funk rhythms - but from there it is a palette open to a world of sounds.

And this multicultural New York group daubs in Cuban and African drumming styles, improvised  and structured call-and-response chants and dub-reggae keyboard vamps.

It is music to move to, infectious as the rhythm evolves, bubbling from a slow beginning to happy bursts of sound-colour. Fortunately, one brave audience member leapt from her seat after the first lengthy piece; she was soon joined by another keen dancer.

From there the aisles flooded - there must have been well over 100 audience members in front of the stage, people dancing down the stairs, no longer confined to jellying shoulders, no longer constrained by the appalling decision to have a band this funky play to a makeshift seated arena.

Lead singer and conga player Amayo thanked the dancers and it was clear the band lifted its already high-energy performance as a result of having so many of the audience at their feet, fully engaged in the weave and flow of the tunes.

Leaving rhythmic and melodic parts stewing in a melting pot of funk, jazz and reggae, the groove bubbled over, stretching out beyond conventional song length.

As the audience became more eager with each piece, the band continued to lift the energy, issuing call-and-response parts to sides of the auditorium and encouraging audience members up on the stage.

Fela Kuti and his Africa 70 group, so clearly the impetus behind Antibalas, were acknowledged with a closing cover.

Baritone saxophonist Martin Perna rightly called Kuti the Godfather of Afrobeat; he would have been proud of his godchildren, based on this performance.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
1927
Pacific Blue Festival Club: 6, 10–14 March
Southward Theatre, Paraparaumu: 7 March
Masterton Town Hall: 8 March

Mixing live music and action with film and animation Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea explores some dark places in ways that echo Heinrich Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter and that mad surrealist movie by Buñuel and Dali. Only much funnier.

As the lights go down pianist Lillian Henley, already on stage, plays in the style of a pleasantly manic silent movie sound track. Esme Appleton provides the visual gag that begins and ends the show, enchanting in its simplicity and effectiveness. Then Suzanne Andrade enunciates in vowels more rounded than any well-bred schoolgirl could possibly aspire to, declaring - declaiming - the show's basic premise: that between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea are some dark dark places, which will be explored for our edification in ten terrible tales.

And terrible they are, in the most wonderful way. Gingerbread men riot and are horribly tortured for our pleasure, bad things happen to grandmothers, babies, cats and unfortunate lodgers. Demonic children speak in wonderfully chilling synchronisation about the unfortunate fates of any who displease them, housewives compete for domestic perfection and are suitably punished. Appleton and Andrade's characters spark off each other, and Henley's music enhances the stylish black and white movie aesthetic throughout, including when she breaks into song and shares her own dark whimsical tale.

Paul Barritt is responsible for the film and animations which are an integral part of the performance. As in Ship Songs, the show which precedes Between in the same venue for some nights of the Festival, the performers interact with their screen. However this show goes much further. In the film sequences performers move smoothly from stage to screen to stage, creating a strange confusion between the real and unreal. The animations are crazy clever, the febrile imaginings of a particularly fiendish schoolchild. There is a most wonderful dream-poem sequence bought to life in sketches reminiscent of Ronald Searle, with the text adapted just a little to play to a New Zealand audience.

The show originally debuted at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe, where it won multiple awards including the Fringe First. Since then it has toured, including to the States, Australia and Singapore. Its strange mix of music, mime, horror, crackly film and plumily-accented verse have garnered much critical approval, sometimes from some very surprised critics. If you have ever been forced to endure bad poetry, or joyless experimental theatre that makes no sense at all, you deserve to go to Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Balm to any soul ever so tortured, it gleefully mocks and subverts with perfect comic style.

Irya’s Playground
Pacific Blue Festival Club
7 March

This Swedish pop band is here for the festival to play as part of ‘Inside Out’, the Cirkus Cirkör show. The group is popular in their homeland, and perhaps it seemed logical to extend the audience potential for this act by giving them their own show in a festival venue.

However, at times it felt like I was seeing just half a show, especially when they would introduce a song saying it accompanied a trapeze act in the circus. At times when the music started rocking, I felt that I would much rather be enjoying the music in a way typical of pop acts – at a venue such as the San Francisco Bathhouse, where you can dance, get up close to the band, and get an audience vibe going, or even stand at the back of the crowd, feeling the atmosphere.

As it was, we were stuck in our seats, listening intently to music that is pretty light pop. And not particularly quirky or interesting pop at that.

Irya Gmeyner is the singer/songwriter in the group. Her voice is velvety and relaxed, and also capable of conveying intense emotion. Her songs are mostly about yearning for lost love, and a certain resigned melancholy at the recognition one is getting older.

The vocal harmonies were at times beautiful, and the band is clearly made up of professional and accomplished musicians. The music varied from indie pop, to dub, with some 1960s country mixed in.

The band’s banter and tone made them seem quite wholesome and uncomplicated. I was looking for an edge, especially after we were handed ear plugs on the way in. I was prepared for something a bit darker, or if not dark, perhaps silly, or quirky. As it was, they seemed quite middle of the road, played very loudly.