The Forge at the Court launched its 2010 season on Friday night with a New Zealand play, Saving Grace. It was a celebratory occasion to which a cross-0section of the Christchurch theatre scene was invited.

Duncan Sarkies is now a well-known and successful film and television writer, as well as play and prose writer. Saving Grace is one of his early works, written in 1994. In spite of winning an award for the best New Zealand play of that year, Saving Grace demonstrates some inexperience in the emerging playwright. It is a mixture of comedy and dark malevolent psychological confusion which don’t sit comfortably together.

This production is extremely well sustained by Kathleen Burns (Grace) and Jon Pheloung (Gerald, aka Jesus Christ). Burns makes the most of her sharp-edged repartee with excellent timing. Pheloung seems at ease and comfortably projects a pleasant warmth on stage. They work as very good foils for each other. In the play Sarkies’ skill as a dialogue writer is in evidence. His play is well served by the two actors who, in this production directed by Lara Macgregor), drive the play along at a good pace.

The main difficulty of this play, and for a number in the audience, is the lack of consistency in the plot development. What happens in the first act does not prepare the audience for the bizarre events of the second. It may explain why a small part of the audience either laughed rather extravagantly, or left the theatre. It is hard to know how to react to the second half. Certainly I didn’t find two people completely self destructing a very laughable experience.

At the start Grace is an edgy street girl who fills in most of her day playing computer games at the local take-away. She is not coping with life, nor with the sudden death of her mother. Gerald, a lonely unemployed carpenter meets her there by chance, after a brief initial encounter at Winz (or its equivalent).

He is at least twice her age. Nevertheless they gradually become friends, and she who usually trusts no one comes to rely on him. In fact she moves into his place. She starts to open up to him, telling him things from her past. In return he is very kind to her, and not critical. He is gentle with her, and at least in the first half is not at all demanding.

For her part Grace offers him company and fun, on the side improving his computer game-playing skills. They begin to co-exist in a mutually satisfactory, and at first non-sexual way. She gains stability in her life. Gerald realises how much he enjoys having her around. Her presence breaks through his intense feelings of loneliness. Their feelings develop for each other, their lives become interlinked, even co-dependent.

Then Gerald tells Grace that he is Jesus Christ. Initially Grace tries to argue Gerald out of his self delusion, but his peculiarly determined frame of mind overwhelms her, causing her to give up her own ideas and become passive in his hands. Or, as we later discover, does she? There are many unanswered questions about the turn of events, and who is responsible for them.

From then on the play explodes into a totally new dimension. Out of the blue it becomes a play about psychotic delusion, and neither character behaves according to how they have so far been presented. A mildly realist, slightly amusing play becomes weirdly surreal.

The play is obviously intended to provoke strong reactions. On a number of levels it is surprising, and leaves many unanswered questions. Or perhaps it doesn’t even ask the questions in the first place. In the end the comedy sits uneasily with the shattering outcome.

Macgregor’s direction is generally sharp and the actors sustain the pace and the energy very well. There is perhaps too much fiddling with the placement of scenery and props in the numerous scene changes. Do we really need them all? The sound, and in later stages the visual images, are very successful. Overall the performance of the play exceeds the writing.
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