Split with wit in the Big Apple

Stephan Lovatt and Jo Davison play a couple in crisis in The Scene. Photo / Richard Robinson

The tagline for the Silo Theatre's latest offering, The Scene, reads: "When you scratch the surface, what you get is surface". Or maybe not, say Stephen Lovatt and Jo Davison, who play married couple Charlie and Stella in the black comedy by American playwright and novelist Theresa Rebeck.

On the surface, it looks like Charlie is the archetypal "love rat" caught in a standard mid-life crisis trap. His career stalled long ago and he's financially dependent on Stella who - despite it all - still wants to start a family and live out her life with Charlie.

So when he leaves Stella for Clea (Sophie Henderson), a Barbie doll-like blonde described as a "trophy wife in waiting with a vocabulary ripped straight from Facebook", he's the bad guy and Stella the wronged wife. Right?

Lovatt says that's way too simplistic a take on a much more complex situation. "You can't judge," he says. "The play certainly doesn't. It makes it quite clear there's no right and wrong. When you're talking about the destruction of a marriage, it's never clear-cut as to whether it is a good or a bad thing."

Davison, who has returned to New Zealand from two years in London, agrees. Stella's world may look as if it has collapsed but there's the hint she'll be better off without Charlie.

"It's easy to judge other people, to look in on their lives when you're not actually involved."

Davison became a household name in the 1990s, playing Gina Rossi on Shortland Street. Even though it was over a decade ago - and Davison has played many other roles in film, television and theatre since - she doesn't mind discussing the character, briefly.

"Gina was a quintessential batty and ditzy - but lovable - character and I know people who have watched Shortland Street from the beginning who still remember her."

She's glad to be playing a woman who, for starters, is her own age - 35 - with a "flinty" and "ballsy" streak but, despite Charlie's treatment of her, she's not sure whether audiences will warm to Stella. "She's a real woman but there's the whole New York thing going on in that the way she talks and interacts with people is a lot faster, more aggressive, than New Zealanders may be used to.

"She is, though, essentially like a lot of working women in their mid-30s and she's looking forward to pursuing certain things, which is what she thinks Charlie wants, too."

But talk of affairs and marriage break-ups risks making The Scene sound too much like a serious domestic drama rather than the contemporary urban comedy of manners, with razor-sharp dialogue, that it is.

It attracted the attention of Silo artistic director Shane Bosher when he saw it on the bill at New York's Second Stage Theatre. Bosher keeps an eye on what small-scale contemporary theatres around the world are picking up, saying they often have "synergies" with Silo. The Scene appealed immediately.

"It's an urban comedy of manners in a very contemporary form, so much so that it becomes a comedy of bad manners," he says. "The characters say the type of things we all wish we had the courage, at times, to say so that watching it almost becomes something of a celebratory experience for audiences."

Bosher likens it to last year's hit The Little Dog Laughed - it explores the human condition in a tightly crafted ensemble piece which draws much inspiration from television and film. That's not surprising given that Rebeck has written for a number of popular television shows, including Third Watch, LA Law and NYPD Blue.

"There are certain references around the culture of writing for television which you know are fantastically observed and can only come from her [Rebeck] own experiences," he says.

Pop culture is a key theme in The Scene. Bosher thinks it's a critique of how much consumption, instant gratification and the body beautiful have come to matter when, in fact, they are vacuous and superficial - the surface below the surface.

While it is set in New York, he sees examining those issues, albeit humorously, as relevant to Auckland. Since repositioning the Silo last year, Bosher says he has looked for work which puts urban culture in the spotlight.

"We looked at what we were here to do and came up with a mission statement to build and critique urban culture, particularly that of Auckland. I think Auckland is aspiring to be like Sydney, New York and London and we have to ask if that's a good thing, what it does to a city's culture and the people who live there."

The Scene is directed by Peter Elliott, who makes his directorial debut, and also stars Edwin Wright.

Performance

What: The Scene
Where and when: Herald Theatre, May 29 to June 27