Lisa Harrow with Taofio Pelesasa (left) and Robbie Magasiva.
Lisa Harrow with Taofio Pelesasa (left) and Robbie Magasiva.
Underneath hilarious comedy is concern with painful reality of relationships
The attraction of playing with fire is brilliantly displayed in a new work by Victor Rodger that lights the fuse on a volatile mixture of outrageous comedy and raw emotion.
The resulting explosion has the force of a volcanic eruption that blows away the veneer of social convention to releaselayers of pent-up emotion and deeply embedded pain.
Revealing family secrets in the charged atmosphere of a funeral is a familiar dramatic device but At the Wake manages to confound expectations with complex characters engaged in a series of neatly structured reversals.
Inter-racial and inter-generational conflict generates plenty of laughter with characters who are oblivious to the strictures of political correctness winding each other up in hilarious exchanges on gender and cultural identity. But beneath the comedy is a thoughtful concern with the painful reality of family relationships and the play offers some stimulating insights on love, loss, duty, forgiveness and our profound yearning for social connection.
The superb cast is given plenty of space to strut their stuff by Mark McEntyre's elegantly sparse set design and Roy Ward's restrained direction.
Lisa Harrow's return to the Auckland stage is an absolute treat as she revels in the blunt insouciance of a dame who is long past caring what people think. Her slow-burning buildup to an explosive emotional catharsis is handled with consummate skill and we get a tantalising glimpse of her Shakespearean voice in the wonderfully lyrical snippet from Twelfth Night.
Robbie Magasiva displays great comic timing and delivers a finely nuanced performance as a fundamentalist Christian who must face the reality of his son's sexual identity.
As the pivot for the show's tempestuous emotions, Taofio Pelesasa does a fine job in undercutting the pretensions of the older generation and movingly evokes the devastating anguish caused by an absent parent.
