Playing one of the most conniving characters on a New Zealand television drama was a piece of cake compared to her latest theatre role, says actor Katherine Kennard. Kennard, most recently seen on Nothing Trivial as Jo Delany, an ex-wife not ready to farewell her former husband, is one of
Tea cools as tensions boil
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Grae Burton, Katherine Kennard, Paul Lewis, David Mackie, Ingrid Park and Jennifer Matter.
"Even the name Marge is a caricature, which has people instantly jumping to conclusions about what she's like so I have to find something of her in me to make it real."
The play takes place in real time with pauses in conversation, awkward asides and ill-thought out remarks; the "action" is confined to Diana and Paul's sitting room.
Park says if there was such a thing as a comedy of awkwardness, this is it. It's very much about social conventions. What people thought they should say compared to what they might have actually wanted to and skirting round issues. It's exhausting to live life like that. It's fantastic that it plays out in real time because it takes away all the other 'stuff' and lets us focus on what's going on and what it's really all about. You can embrace the silences that have been written into it."
Director Adey Ramsel says Absent Friends ushered in a new style of playwriting because it combines drama and comedy; the forerunner of the modern-day dramedy: "If you wanted comedy, you had Noel Coward and, for drama, there was John Osborne but then Alan Ayckbourn came along and said, 'why not do both?"'
Absent Friends opens the year's season for North Shore theatre company Tadpole.
Performance
What: Absent Friends
Where and when: The PumpHouse, Takapuna, May 8-18