KEY POINTS:
In A follow-up to last year's flamboyant A Night of French Mayhem, The Rebel Alliance return with a contemporary work that is firmly rooted in the conventions of the farce.
The wildly improbable storyline is centred on The Children of Gaia - a naive bunch of radical environmentalists
who somehow get hold of a nuclear warhead and threaten to obliterate Auckland unless the Government accedes to their demands.
Writer and director, Anders Falstie-Jensen shows a lively visual imagination and a talent for constructing dynamic theatrical images.
With the simplest of means he convincingly depicts a helicopter raid on a Grey Lynn flat and stages a kamikaze sky-dive that cleverly utilises the height of Herald Theatre to create a compelling image, which recalls the ridiculous but chilling climax of Dr Strangelove.
However the play offers little insight into the motivations for terrorism.
The satirical humour highlights the woolly thinking and wide-eyed idealism of environmental extremists, but the stereotypical characters are easy targets and the jokes quickly become repetitive.
The Children of Gaia are driven by a delusional sense of self-importance, but they surrender themselves to the dictates of an obscure puppet-master who appears only at the very end.
In the programme notes the playwright identifies the role of charismatic leaders as a major concern, but by keeping the leader off-stage he negates the opportunity to explore the reasons for our devotion to such leaders.
None of this would matter if the play maintained the frenetic pace and the incessant plot twists that farce traditionally uses in order to draw attention away from the thinness of the story-line, but the first half of the play moves quite slowly.
The drama becomes much more engaging as the story builds to its action-packed climax and the enthusiastic cast all deliver strong performances.
Jo Lees brings a nicely manic edge to her portrayal of the group's most ideologically committed eco-warrior, and Michael Downey is ruthlessly efficiency when carrying out instructions, but bumbling and indecisive whenever left to think for himself.
Russell Pickering and Liesha Ward-Knox both display an understated Kiwi diffidence in voicing their reservations about dying for the cause.
While The Bomb is not a completely satisfying work, Falstie-Jensen is establishing himself as a playwright with a distinctive style, and here The Rebel Alliance consolidates its reputation for productions that offer a quirky alternative to mainstream theatre.
When: until June 24
