Performance: Still Moving

Auckland Town Hall

Review: Susan Budd

Still Moving is a stunning piece of theatre in which elements of design and performance are beautifully integrated.

The play is set in a lovely but sterile place of transit between worlds, clouded with the ghosts of what might have been.

Timu (Wesley Dowell) circles its levels on his bicycle, trapped into an endless odyssey searching for his love who died 54 years ago.

Stella and Lenny are revealed in two guises: young, confident and loving by Athena Reynolds and Jason Webb, and 50 years older, battered but still keeping the spark of love alight, by Kiri Lightfoot and Max Palamo.

Their dreams are never lost. His life becomes an endless, silent reverie when he loses the job that defined him and Stella's yearnings lie hidden while she busily keeps body and soul together.

How could things have been different? The play gives no simple answers but some glimmerings of possibilities.

The young actors, aged between 16 and 24, give impressive performances. As old Lenny, Palamo has an extraordinary quality of stillness that suggests fires deep within. Lightfoot's chattering desperation clearly masks the fragile hopes of youth, while Webb and Reynolds portray the younger couple with clarity and agility. Dowell combines childlike innocence deepening into maturity with sensitivity.

Sam Scott's production is miraculous, combining physical and verbal elements with skill. Tracey Collins' set is lush and ethereal, Paul Booth's music and Bryan Caldwell's lighting design are beautifully evocative and Carla Martell's choreography is stunning.