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I SSUE 11 | DEC EM BER 2018 T i de W a i t s For N o Man : Epi sode G rac e | S an ta Clau s | L i fe i n th e Wh ale

WGTN

ISSUE 11 DECEMBER 2018

TIDE WAITS FOR NO MAN EPISODE: GRACE 歲月不饒人: 雅安

BY NIKITA 雅涵 TU-BRYANT Produced by Spooky ANTIX and Proudly Asian Theatre Bats Theatre Tues 4th Dec Sat 8th Dec 7:30pm TICKETS: $20/$15 BOOKINGS: www.bats.co.nz Co-producer Spooky ANTIX turns out to be the writer, Nikita 雅涵 Tu-Bryant, a Taiwanese artist who has grown up here in Aotearoa. Working with Proudly Asian Theatre, who, after checking out their website, I find to be a young group creating Asian theatre and challenging themselves and their audiences with what that can mean. The combination sounds pretty interesting.

Nikita 雅涵 has a musical background - plays and sings in a couple of bands with some profile around town - among many other artistic projects and abilities. Though this is her first play. She admits to being "freaked out".

Describing the show in publicity as “experimental”, she explains: “It was one of the few describing words that jumped out at me - I feel it leaves things open. This whole process, being my first time, has been one big question mark - one big experiment! Come to think of it, the word is more for me, than for the publicity!" Fair enough.

Part of the title is Episode: Grace - suggesting a series?

Yes, the original story became way too much for one show.

"In it's first draft, it was a whole story revolving around a family tree of five characters. Each character had their own unique relationship with the others - and they all came back to the homeland for the funeral of the grandfather (爺爺).

Through their reflections and interactions, you learnt about the grandfather's life - though you never see him.

“It was such an epic. All the relationships were very complex. I realised I would never do any of the characters justice compressing it into one show.”

Has Nikita 雅涵 a time frame for creating the whole body of work? Apparently, turning thirty this year was the push for getting the first episode on stage, four years since the idea arrived. In the future, she intends to have each episode completed within two years of the one before.

“I have a bigger vision of the future episodes, collaborating with some of my very talented artist friends from Japan and various parts of Asia. In the last four years I have been overseas and collaborated with different Asian artists. To figure out what my voice could sound like.”

Publicity describes it as a “non-verbal show”, using shadow puppetry, object puppetry and movement. And music, a lot of which Nikita 雅涵 will be composing and putting together. As well as performing herself.

But were shadow puppetry, object puppetry and movement the mediums she knew she would work in when first thinking of the story? There have been a lot of versions in the four years, including circus harness work after time spent with Fuse Circus, a Wellington circus and physical

theatre company. “However, the idea was a bit too abstract for my desired audience - my mum.”

Working with her to create this are Chye-Ling Huang and Marianne Infante.

After working with Kuang-Yu and Stephen Kaplin of Chinese Theatre Works in New York, most of whose work is traditional Chinese shadow puppetry, a new direction was found.

“Chye-Ling Huang and I became friends the year I started writing this show. We have been a part of each other's journey of navigating and learning about cross-cultural identity and it's influences on how we see the world; it plays a huge part in our mahi.”

“Stephen introduced me to his old networks including Bread and Puppet Theatre in Vermont, and that led to my brief apprenticeship there. My love of puppetry was established there, alongside making sustainable art that doesn't create more waste for the environment.”

She also credits work done in Japan. Non-verbal theatre pieces, working with many non-English speakers. “This was such a powerful way to connect.”

So, in final form, a non-verbal show, told through puppetry, music and movement, “that is not such an abstract piece of art that my mother, or any mother from any country, could not connect to the story”.

opportunity, I imagine, for some laughs and relaxation. So how is it for those creating this festive fun?

A Toi Whakaari graduate and award-winning actor, she's done a few shows with A Slightly Isolated Dog. I ask how they devise a show, in particular one which apparently involves "world class clowning and twisted pop songs".

Yes, they hope to make people laugh and maybe experience something new when they're in the theatre.

But is there any message behind the fun?

SANTA CLAUS CREATED BY A SLIGHTLY ISOLATED DOG Directed by Leo Gene Peters Bats Theatre Tues 4th - Sat 15th Dec Tues, Fri, Sat 6pm Weds, Thurs, Fri, Sat 8.45pm TICKETS: $25/$18 BOOKINGS: www.bats.co.nz Having a slightly Grinch-like attitude to the Xmas excess, this is my gesture towards the so-called festive season.

And as it's called Santa Claus , I guess someone in a beard and red suit will make an appearance.

Apparently Santa is threatening to turn up at Bats, knowing - as Santa does - whether or not we've been good little children. Did we buy caged eggs this year?

Park in a disabled parking spot? Secretly record our employer for future blackmail purposes? Fairly topical misdemeanours...

A Slightly Isolated Dog are bringing their "raucous, sexy signature style" to this celebration of Xmas cheer. An

“I think all our shows are about celebrating our most human experiences like shame, fear, disappointment, passion, bravery, boldness. We bring all of that into our work and say 'We all do this? Isn't that crazy! Let's have a drink and laugh about it.' Santa Claus is a response to those ideals and expectations that we all hold onto from childhood.

“So much of Christmas is wrapped up in expectation; it's the waiting, the countdown, the dreaming of the perfect gift or the perfect response to the gift that you've picked for someone. We want it to be the perfect day and for us to be the perfect family or to have the perfect relationship. The pursuit of that is futile, and yet every year the day rolls around and we all try to be perfect together again.”

Earlier shows by the company have taken well-known stories and “shaken them up”or “torn them to shreds”. I was interested in how that approach might apply in this case.

“We're always trying to get closer to our questions inside the work. So, if Santa Claus is about our expectations, then we're constantly trying to find the games, moments, languages that explore that most clearly, that celebrate those questions the most.”

So, how have you behaved yourself this year and which of Santa's lists will you be on - the Nice or the Naughty?

I'll pass on that question.

When I ask if I'd be correct to assume this battle is one experienced by the creators of the piece, Nikita 雅涵 replies "Spot on!:).”

poetry for years. What I could garner from the work I'd seen online was that Vincent loves growing lavender babies, hates leaving the house, and has a phenomenally unique and dark sense of humour. Now they've written a sweet and surreal play about the inside of a whale? I'm in.”

Susie Berry, one of the performers involved in this seasonal offering, answers my questions.

“The process is fraught, fun, challenging, rewarding and exhausting. It's a lot of trial and error. The closest thing I can compare it to is trying to plan the most epic and fun party to host all of your favourite people. For Santa Claus we talked a lot about our best Christmases ever as well as our worst, and figured out what was essential to both of those experiences.”

Chye-Ling is also the director and co-founder of Proudly Asian Theatre, and it was through Chye-Ling that Nikita 雅涵 was introduced to Marianne Infante, another female Asian artist with puppeteering experience. Also the show's choreographer - and another artist with an understanding of the themes, one of which, publicity tells me, is “the battle between ancient culture and modern identity" - or, as Nikita 雅涵 puts it to me, the effect of "cultural patriarchy on a twenty-first century woman”.

LIFE IN THE WHALE

BY VINCENT KONRAD Directed by George Fenn Co-produced by FIDK and A Mulled Whine Bats Theatre Tues Dec 11th - Sat Dec 15th 7:30pm TICKETS: $20/$15 BOOKINGS: www.bats.co.nz “Gosh! Surprisingly dry! Newley has woken up inside a whale and missed their dentist appointment. Inside the body of the largest mammal on earth, four whale-bound locals are living a humble existence.”

This debut play by celebrated indie writer Vincent Konrad, is an “absurd and sensuous play which captures the sardonic whimsy that defines Konrad’s acclaimed comics and prose”.

Vincent is already known for creating illustrations, comics, poetry and prose. The calibre of the team working on this show suggests Vincent's popularity. I ask a couple of team members where they'd come across them.

George Fenn, director: “I met Vincent in 2012 at a party of other fresh Christchurch creative refugees. I asked Vincent to write me a play and six years later they did.

They've been making me chuckle ever since with their online presence and in our fleeting chance encounters.”

And Eleanor Strathern, co-producer: “I'd definitely seen Vincent around! It helps that they are extremely tall, mysterious and stylish in real life. I had been coming across their somehow adorably nihilistic cartoons and

So why the move to theatre as a form of expression?

Vincent's reply expresses a sentiment that I, as a playwright, totally relate to: “It is a source of unending joy that people - potentially people I never even meet - will get up in front of a crowd and say the ridiculous things I have written.” Yes. I ask for some comment or description to give a flavour or indicate the tone of Life in The Whale . From Vincent: “Heinrich Heine put it best: “Sleep is good, death is better. Of course, it would be best never to have been born at all.”

I google Heinrich Heine. A Jewish-German poet and literary type of the early 1800's. Later work distinguished by it's satirical wit and irony. All right ...

The whale - a metaphor? Vincent recommends a website, www.whalefacts.org. “There's a whole page on what whales mean in dreams - 'a symbol of strength, spirituality and protection, although they have also been interpreted as a sign of our darkness and the possibility of experiencing a loss in our lives'. Thanks, whalefacts dot org!”

And the physical challenge of creating the internals of a whale? Director George's reply seems suitably surreal: “The stage directions include Corinthian pillars, so it's lucky we're in the beautiful Bats Heyday Dome, which has those.”

Fairly mystified but also curious, I'm keen on an appointment with this whale. Definitely better than the dentist.

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