Mates & Lovers
24/09/2009 - 03/10/2009
Production Details
"Mates & Lovers includes the stories of individual men – their trials, tribulations and sheer determination to make their way in a sometimes unsympathetic society. It will translate into compelling theatre. Ronald Trifero Nelson is skilled at capturing the essence of human situations and emotions and projecting them onto the stage, and I know he’ll do a fabulous job with the book’s life stories. I can’t wait to see the show!" – Chris Brickell
The production’s poster image is a recreation of the 1888 photo which adorns the cover of the original book. "Like the book’s author, Chris Brickell, I recognised several things about it. Their knees are touching. They’re sitting on the chairs back-to-front, perfectly framing their crotches. In the original photo there was a Roman column. All these aspects make you wonder about the guys’ relationship." – Ronald Trifero Nelson from a gaynz.com article by Matt Akersten.
Mates & Lovers
Season: Thursday 24 September – Saturday 3 October (no show Sun/Mon)
Time: 9pm
Tickets: $18 full / $13 concession / $16 groups (6+)
book now! book@bats.co.nz
Performed by:
Sam McLeod & Kent Seaman
A romp through history
Review by Laurie Atkinson [Reproduced with permission of Fairfax Media] 28th Sep 2009
Ronald Trifero Nelson has adapted Chris Brickell’s recent book Mates and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand and he has created a sleek, revue-like docudrama that traces gay life in this country from the times of Captain Cook to the present day.
On a bare stage and with only two chairs and the occasional change of costumes as supports, and aided by Wendy Clease’s low-key lighting, Sam McLeod and Kent Seaman give first-rate performances in an unbroken sequence of snapshots (literally and metaphorically) of gay life in Aotearoa.
The snapshots are often funny, occasionally crude, moving, and always pointedly direct whether it is an American soldier during the war meeting up on "Victoria Mountain" in Wellington with a "May-ori" who has seen Gone with the Wind too many times or a young man at the beginning of last century fascinated by Greek myths and discovering Oscar Wilde’s life and works as well as his own sexuality.
The Homosexual Law Reform Bill is mentioned in passing as is AIDS which is encapsulated in a brief, beautifully underwritten and touchingly performed scene that for me was the highlight of the production. One of the songs, which might be called Manslaughter, is in the more traditional satirical revue style but no less effective for that in its angry humour, while the wartime Kiwi Concert Party sequence is pure camp.
Despite one scene of an angry man demanding his rights as a citizen the rest of the scenes are blessedly free from righteous indignation and crude portraits of homophobic rednecks. The performance begins and ends with McLeod and Seaman performing a dance that is a powerful celebration of love rather than the more usual demands for moral and legal justice.
However, it probably helps at times to have read Chris Brickell’s book as there are some scenes which are hard to follow as we are given little or no background but are plunged straight into the events. And dramatic as the events of the Mayor of Wanganui and the poet D’Arcy Cresswell’s sensational encounter were, as well Cresswell’s later suicide, we do need a bit of a lead-in, if like me you are ignorant of their story. There’s a full-length play here surely?
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Book your tickets because you won't want to miss this
Review by Sarah Helm 25th Sep 2009
An accessible journey into the history of gay and bisexual men in our land of milk and honey, this 80 minute theatrical journey magically progresses you through the decades since early colonisation. Two beautiful and convincing actors are your history guides, with only two chairs and some flimsy clothing to aid their recreation of sensitive, amusing, and significant moments of our gay whakapapa. The trip will make you laugh out loud, rise to anger and want to cry.
It sounded pretty unlikely – an award-winning non-fiction book being turned into an engaging piece of theatre. History book? Dull. But Ronald Nelson, writer, producer and director, has triumphed. This play is masterful. He was assisted by a small team of people. The work of the choreographer John Butterfield and lighting designer Wendy Clease have clearly added to the enchantment the audience feel as they tour through at least thirty vignettes of gay men’s lives. [More]
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For more production details, click on the title above. Go to Home page to see other Reviews, recent Comments and Forum postings (under Chat Back), and News.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
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