Theatre review: Silent Night

Yvette Parsons' one-woman, one act play Silent Night is as resonant as a long life lived in middle New Zealand - brimming with laughs, hurt, joy, hope, disappointment, satisfaction and sadness.

The audience is with elderly widow Irene McMunn in her "unit" as she prepares a Christmas celebration, to which none of the "invitees" has yet turned up.

The preparations trigger her excursions down memory lane, the track through those reminiscences not always straight or smooth.

Irene repeatedly saves herself from plummeting over the brink into inconsolable heartache, inexpressible anger, anguish or the shocking realisation of abiding loneliness. Made of tougher stuff, Irene soldiers on, self belief slightly shaken but not stirred.

Irene's vignettes of a life interrupted by war, the Tangiwai disaster, a marriage dogged by impotence, are at times hilarious, at others sad, and always told in the vernacular of a receding Kiwi generation. It's literally laugh'til you cry stuff.

As well as Parsons' inhabiting the emotional, cultural and intellectual landscape of her character, she masterfully mimics the movement and physicality of an elderly woman.

The set is straight out of Nanaland - the Catholic icons, Charles and Di photos, net curtains and rubber ring cushions adding texture to the rich telling of Irene's story.

Irene isn't always entirely likeable but she does evoke sympathy.

With sensitive, sharp direction from Stephen Papps, Parsons tells Irene's lonely story and portrays the character brilliantly, not with subtlety but with bitter-sweet clarity.

Silent Night

Written and performed by Yvette Parsons

Director: Stephen Papps.

The Riverbank Centre, Whangarei, July 19