KEY POINTS:
Spurs, a comic Western set in the American wild west, is really more of a psychological thriller, says actor-writer Natalie Medlock.
British-born and Te Puke-raised Medlock explains how the piece which she and partner Daniel Musgrove wrote, explores human companionship when a cowboy on the run has a strange and fateful exchange with a mysterious Indian.
Just as she is getting deep and meaningful about its themes, Medlock stops and laughs disarmingly. "And of course," she says, "we wanted to play cowboys and Indians."
It is a hint that while Medlock and Musgrove, graduates from the Toi Whakaari School of Drama in Wellington, are ambitious, they also like to have fun. That is paying off for the dynamic duo, who met three years ago at the drama school.
Graduating late last year, they devised their first show Blinkers for the Wellington Fringe Festival in February and passed the first major hurdle of their careers by earning good reviews and a sell-out audience. Reviewers described it as "way-out wacky ... well worth seeing" and as one of the festival's stand-out shows.
Auckland audiences get their first glimpse of the duo's work from next week when they perform A Horse Story: Blinkers and Spurs - two plays on one bill, both written by and featuring the young actors under the direction of Sophie Roberts and Laurel Devenie.
In Blinkers, the worlds of two seemingly disparate neighbours - Amy, a slovenly punk rock fantasist, and Monty, a fastidious librarian obsessed with horses - collide when Monty invites Amy for dinner. The misfit outsiders reach out to each other but find making a connection more difficult than they imagine, with startling results.
Spurs carries on the exploration of human nature by continuing with the theme of two strangers meeting and the reverberations of their encounter.
"We wanted to create a piece that would complement Blinkers so we could perform them together as a main bill," explains Medlock. "We didn't want to make Blinkers II but we did want to unite them so Dan came up with the idea of a Western.
"We like to think of Spurs as the fantasy world of our first two characters with them being blown out of their apartments into a much wider world. Both stories are about companionship and the human need for other people."
Despite the characters' quirks, she says they are recognisable, if extreme, examples of ordinary people obsessed with ordinary things to the point where both person and passion becomes extraordinary.
They are grounded in Musgrove and Medlock's own interests.
"I introduced her to Patti Smith and she introduced me to horse riding," says Musgrove. "I think Nat's been a bit more enthusiastic about the music - she's really into it now - than I have been about the horse riding. I've trotted and cantered but never galloped."
He says it was by design that his Blinkers character, Monty, is obsessed with horses and that Smith's debut album, released in 1975, was called Horses.
Once the Auckland season of A Horse Story: Blinkers and Spurs ends, the two will travel to the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
"We are both determined not to be sitting by the phone waiting for auditions so, yes, we are both ambitious but getting a lot of satisfaction from doing our own stuff," says Musgrove. "We are really looking forward to performing in Auckland because it feels like there's a vibrant young audience for theatre there."
PERFORMANCE
What: A Horse Story: Blinkers and Spurs
Where: The Basement, July 23 to Aug 1Wacky two-play show explores the complexities of human nature, writes Dionne Christian
