What: Nation, based on the novel by Terry Pratchett; part of the National Theatre Live initiative to broadcast plays in cinemas worldwide
Where and when: Rialto Newmarket, Saturday February 20, 2.30pm; February 21, 10.30am; plus two screenings each at Rialtos Christchurch and Dunedin
When lead character Mau appears to break out into a haka, there seems something distinctly Kiwi about Nation.
While a map of New Zealand can be spotted on the elaborate revolving set, there is something not quite right about the play's South Pacific locale.
But then the stage version of
Sir Terry Pratchett's bestselling children's novel, which screens in New Zealand cinemas next weekend as part of the English National Theatre's Live programme, takes place in the fictional Great Southern Pelagic Ocean.
It's a point that is sometimes missed by anyone not familiar with the production's origins.
"Fans of science fiction and fantasy just go with that kind of idea right away," says writer Mark Ravenhill, who adapted the novel for the stage.
"It's almost exactly like our universe but things are slightly different.
"If you read a lot of sci-fi books or watch a lot of sci-fi television, you don't really notice that kind of thing but older audiences and people who haven't got that kind of track record in sci-fi are a bit frightened of that. They go, 'Hang on, this is the 19th century but there's a king on the throne?"'
Set in a parallel 1860, Nation centres around Daphne (Emily Taafe), a prim Victorian teenager shipwrecked on a remote desert island. There she meets youthful warrior Mau (Gary Carr), whose people perished in the same ferocious storm.
"I really liked the characters and the meeting of these two hemispheres," says Ravenhill. "It also tackles big philosophical questions about what happens when people die such as, 'Is there a God? What happens when people die? What is the relationship between faith and science?' It had all these massive questions all wrapped up in a really great adventure story."
Nation fits into a long-standing literary tradition that can be traced back to perennial favourites such as Robinson Crusoe and also recent additions to the canon such as Lost.
"One of the things I like about the book is that it is so fundamentally optimistic whereas Lord of the Flies says that if you put a group of young people on an island, they'll revert to being like cruel animals," notes Ravenhill, referring to William Golding's classic 1954 novel.
"This book says if you take away civilisation and leave people with nothing, they'll start discovering things and rebuild a new, better civilisation. I really love the positive nature of that."
The play also invites comparisons with the Bard's castaway dramas such as The Tempest and Twelfth Night.
"When you put something like this on stage and it starts with a shipwreck and people being stranded on an island, it starts seeming a lot more Shakespearian than it does in the book," says Ravenhill.
"And then you get the Parrot following them around, which reminds you of the Fool from King Lear," he adds, referring to Jason Thorpe's brilliant, wisecracking cabin bird.
Following in the footsteps of Michael Murpago's War Horse and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Nation is the latest in a long line of popular children's novels the National has turned into popular Christmas plays. While it hasn't been a box office smash like War Horse, which was recently optioned for the big screen by Steven Spielberg, it is a vibrant and endearing production.
It also echoes His Dark Materials' concerns with the nature of religious belief, although Pratchett is not as uncompromising in his views as the dogmatically atheist Pullman.
"What I really liked about the book is that he is really even-handed," says Ravenhill. "His natural instincts as a writer are as a rationalist and he's fascinated by science.
"As the book and the play start, you probably think it's going to be an outright attack on God, but as the story goes on it reaches a more balanced acceptance that human beings need some kind of mythology to make sense of the world.
"Science is the most important thing but it doesn't end up dismissing or ridiculing faith."
Nation represents a departure for Ravenhill, best known for controversial plays such as Shopping and F***ing and Some Explicit Polaroids.
But he has also written several plays for young audiences and in 2007 updated the pantomime Dick Whittington for the Barbican.
"I take exactly the same approach to everything I do," he says. "I engage with the characters and the story. Anything I write, I write essentially for myself. It has to be something I enjoy."
He hopes the National's move into cinemas will expose its plays to a wider audience. "The fact that your play can be seen by people in lots of different countries is brilliant."
He believes Kiwi audiences will identify with the play's Polynesian flavour. "There's several scenes about the two hemispheres and their different views of the world," he says.
"In the book, you get a really strong sense of it as some kind of South Pacific culture but on stage it is a little less specific.
"But it should have particular resonance and meanings for people in Australia and New Zealand."
