It’s a farce, so misunderstandings and confusion reign

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Evolution Theatre's latest production Rumors is hilarious entertainment, where a traumatic situation is handled with silliness and mix-ups.

In other words, it's your classic farce.

Party host Charlye Brock (played by Andrew Stevens) never actually makes an appearance, but the story hinges on his attempt to shoot himself in the head. His efforts result in just a bloody earlobe.

What ensues is a series of cover-ups, deception, and of course rumours.

The play opens with dinner party guests Ken and Chris Gorman (played by Russell McLeod and Amber Aitkenhead) trying to come up with a story to tell other expected guests, why their host is indisposed.

The injured Mr Brock is the deputy mayor of Wellington and has invited a few close friends to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his marriage to Myra.

But she is nowhere to be found and it seems that the kitchen staff have also disappeared.

McLeod is convincing as Charlye's clumsy lawyer friend, as he stumbles over his cooked-up stories which, he explains, were thought up to “protect his client”.

When other guests learn about the situation, they start making their own assumptions and forming theories on how the event might have transpired and why.

Guests Lenny and Claire Gantz, elegantly played by Fraser Grout and Jill White, suspect the non-appearance of their host might be related to “an affair or affairs”, while Lenny reckons Myra was “having a thing with someone”.

His wife reveals that a credible source from their tennis club insists that, instead, it was the host who was having a “hot affair”.

Dorothy Fletcher ably plays the lovable Cookie Cussack, a cooking fanatic who cooks 32 times in a week for her family, dog and her own cooking show. Her frequent back spasms during the most tense moments provide a comic relief.

When her husband Ernie, played by Hugo McGuinness, is mistaken for the house butler by affluent couple Glen and Cassie Cooper (Dave Hall and Paula Hatten), rumours spread that the servants — thought to have vanished — have returned.

Two police constables (Arran Dunn and Julie McPhail) arrive to conduct an investigation and become suspicious of the guests who have denied hearing any gunshots, despite neighbours lodging a complaint.

The cover-ups get progressively more difficult to sustain and nobody can remember who has been told what about whom and mayhem ensues.

Director Dinna Myers has brought her usual sure touch to this play by the late Neil Simon, one of the most successful, prolific and performed playwrights in theatre.

■ Rumors by Evolution Theatre Company, 75 Disraeli Street, opens tomorrow at 7.30 pm. The season runs to March 26. For dates and tickets, go to www.trybooking.com/nz/events/landing/8619