Great works to make you think

Gritty, witty, caustic, thought-provoking - all words that spring to mind for anyone who knows their Brit theatre and hears the names Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Steven Berkoff.
Directors Sally Richards and Megan Peacock-Coyle are giving Hawke's Bay theatregoers a chance to see the work of these playwrights in a series of short plays next week at The Assembly, Hawke's Bay Opera House.
Ken Keys trades behind the scenes action as HaBYT (Hawke's Bay Youth Theatre) director and founder for the stage when he takes on one of Pinter's short solo works, A Piece of Monologue, while Auckland actor Sam Bunkall becomes the "actor" in the piece of the same name by Berkoff. Wendy Beauchamp and Lorraine Jones share the stage for Beckett's The Black and White.
Pinter, who has written for theatre, film, television and radio, wrote The Black and White, about observation and relationships, in 1959.
Berkoff, himself a familiar face on screen and in theatre, also has many talents when it comes to writing and directing for theatre. Actor, fed from his own years of struggle, is a monologue for an actor who, through a series of telephone conversations, offers the audience an insight into his relationships with others.
Beckett, whose best known theatre work is Waiting for Godot, was an absurdist Irish playwright, novelist and poet whose work is often described as pessimistic and cryptic. A Piece of Monologue is about a man looking back over his life and seeing if he measures up.
Richards and Peacock-Coyle, who met while working on their theatre arts masters at Toi Whakaari NZ Drama School in 2005, are both interested in this type of work.
Richards, an Australian trained professional actor turned director, moved from freelance directing in Wellington to Hawke's Bay a year ago to focus on her PhD research on solo performance in theatre. It is where the idea for the Shorts season initially came from.
Directing is a great challenge because of the responsibility, whether for an ensemble or just one actor, but on the plus side you also get to be creative, she says.
All three plays share an emphasis on language and theatricality, so Richards and Peacock-Coyle believe it may be quite different to what local audiences are used to. "I think Hawke's Bay has an amazing lively theatre arts community (but) we want to give Hawke's Bay audiences a different experience."
 
What: SHORTS: The Black and White, A Piece of Monologue, Actor
Where: The Assembly, HB Opera House, Hastings
When: 7.30pm October 28-30.
Tickets: TicketDirect.