Greenham Common veteran Hilary is now in her fifties and clinging to feminism, literacy, education and the power of reason. Teenage daughter Tilly – determinedly vapid, hedonistic and rude – couldn’t be more different.  

Playwright April de Angelis has brilliantly contrasted 1980s feminist idealism with today’s television and Facebook-influenced superficiality, and Jumpy is an abrasive comedy with icy bleakness at its core.

Director Shane Bosher emphasises the play’s discord with a smart pace, loud, jarring music and edgy lighting. Maryanne Wright-Smyth’s costumes precisely indicate each character’s place in society and character type, Tilly’s extreme outfits clashing with Hilary’s more sensible attire.

Hilary, who anchors the play, is its only truly sympathetic character – mature, confident, unable to compete with her daughter’s cellphone for attention and utterly terrified by the prospects of no job, a stagnant marriage, estrangement from Tilly and the probability of environmental ruin. Her complexity is superbly revealed by Rima Te Wiata. Tilly is played with the complete unlikeability and unrelenting contempt that the part demands, as well as the highest heels you’ve ever seen, by Lauren Gibson.

Other especially noteworthy performances come from Stephen Butterworth as Roland, an actor seemingly unaware that all the world is not a stage; Priyanka Xi as Lyndsey, a tiny teenage mother with a child’s comprehension of the world; and Hilary Halba as Hilary’s friend Frances, whose desperate demonstration of the liberating power of burlesque leaves her on-stage audience deeply unimpressed and the off-stage one aghast.   

‘Jumpy’ turns out to be the name of a toy, but it’s also an indication of this play’s crashingly funny and deeply disturbing effect, and could well describe the mood of many theatre-goes as they left the theatre on Saturday night.

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I may not be a parent but I work with adolescents and I know all too well that hideous moment when the child who has trusted and respected you suddenly looks at you with the cold, hard eyes of a contemptuous stranger.  In Jumpy, April De Angelis confronts this universal domestic crisis boldly, not hiding the crucial part sex plays in both the rift and the expression of it.  It is a splendid choice for the winter of the Fortune’s 40^th year. 

De Angelis is a cracker playwright who can be both profound and funny, and the Fortune production does her full justice, beginning by importing the much-lauded ex-director of Silo Theatre, Shane Bosher.  He has his large cast of nine seasoned actors zooming round the stage with the smoothness of well-directed traffic, efficiently carrying out the many complicated set changes as well as playing their parts with apparently confident ease.  

Bosher’s frequent collaborator, designer Dan Williams, has created an ingenious set that keeps the energy flowing.  The neutral coloured walls, steps and kit set furniture are swung round to indicate changes for some eighteen scenes: quite a challenge for the actors/stage shifters!  Martyn Roberts brings it to life with his attractive lighting design while Matthew Morgan’s sound has the audience jigging. 

The costumes (Maryanne Wright-Smyth) make a visual statement about the generation gap, with the teenage girls in unbelievably short, tight dresses and ludicrously high heels, while the adults’ gear ranges from deeply uncool tees to aggressive power dressing – and of course the hilariously inappropriate burlesque outfits. 

The characters are middle class English, but they feel like New Zealanders and it’s easy to identify with them.  Could there ever, anywhere, have been teenagers who didn’t scream at their parents, “You’ve ruined my life”?  Or adults who didn’t wonder what happened to the ideals of their youth? 

The story is that of Hilary, once an ardent feminist and pacifist who protested against nuclear arms at Greenham Common.  Now she is hitting fifty and in meltdown: her marriage is tired and her job is on the line.  She is bewildered by the hostility of her fifteen-year-old daughter and appalled by the new brand of feminism which requires girls to dress like hookers. “You were never meant to have a Barbie! A recipe for self-hatred!” 

Rima Te Wiata is warm and winning as Hilary, delivering a beautifully controlled performance in a role that could easily be played for laughs.  In fact the subtlety of her acting and consequent believability of her character make the comedy all the funnier but allow us to feel the pathos of the hurt mother as well. 

As her daughter Tilly, talented Lauren Gibson has the expression and mannerisms of a sulky teenager off pat, over-reacting to everything her mother tentatively tries to say:  “Don’t go psycho at me!”  Beneath the obnoxiousness we sense her fragility, and she wins our sympathy at all the right moments.  I love the injured dignity with which she stomps upstairs on only one preposterous shoe. 

Her pregnant friend Lyndsey, charmingly played by Priyanka Xi, all loopy smile and tangled legs, might seem too naïve to be true, but – I can vouch for it – she is not.  Lyndsay too elicits our sympathy, later quaintly observing of her baby “he’s really nice” while the adults treat her with scant respect. Together these two give a scarily accurate picture of today’s young women, their vulnerability well concealed under a layer of sophistication as thick as their mascara. 

Hilary Halba is in sparkling top form as Hilary’s hard-boiled best friend Frances, her comic timing so perfect she can get a laugh merely from saying “and”.  Halba wins a spontaneous round of applause when Frances, in her attempt to stave off middle age, treats us to the amazing burlesque number, justifying it nobly: “I won’t be a fucking puppet! I’m ironically deconstructing it!” 

As Bea, the protective mother of the youthful boyfriend, Barbara Power is a very different sort of tough woman.  Power has great stage presence, and her line delivery is as spiky as her vicious looking stiletto heels, as she asserts early pregnancy is actually harder on the boy. 

The men seem pale by comparison with these strong, complex women.  Hilary’s husband Mark leaves most of the decisions to her, but his often ignored comments show him to be reflective, and Jon Pheloung makes him a likeable bloke with a wry sense of humour. 

Bea’s philandering husband Roland (“I’m an actor! I don’t know how to turn off the charm!”) is the one character who for me does not ring true.  Though Stephen Butterworth acts with commendable energy, his exaggerated performance seems out of kilter with the realism of the other characters.  De Angelis appears to have made this role one-dimensional, and I imagine most actors would be insulted to be stereotyped as this vain and shallow.  Perhaps she had someone in mind. 

The two young men are more credible though they haven’t as much to do: Tilly’s cute first boyfriend Josh (Nathan Mudge, wonderful last year in Tribes) typically does his best to be invisible, while her next love-interest, Cam, doesn’t arrive till late in proceedings.  When he does however, he makes quite an impression.  I can guarantee that at least one of Cam’s appearances, flamboyantly carried off by dashing Jordan Selwyn, will never be forgotten. Don’t blink. 

It is Cam who quite casually gives Hilary an insight into her daughter’s true feelings. This leads to a heart-warming moment, sweetly played by Te Wiata and Gibson, but before we are permitted to slide into sentimentality the comedy takes over and we are roaring with laughter again.  De Angelis is brilliant at this tightrope writing and, as Bosher ensures that the pace picks up in the second half, it does not become predictable. 

One of the funniest scenes is when Hilary and hubby are trying to keep up their resolve of reading Dickens aloud in bed, while bedsprings creak next door. To overhear the love-making of family members of any age is the most cringe-making thing imaginable.  

There’s nothing new about this – think of Hamlet agonising over his mother:
“Oh shame! Where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, 
  If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, 
  To flaming youth let virtue be as wax 
  And melt in her own fire!”

But those of us who don’t happen to be princes above the law, able to slaughter anyone offensive, simply have to come to terms with it.  In the foyer later someone relates how when, as a guest, he complained to his host of night sounds from the daughter’s bedroom, the father merely conceded, “Yes, she’s a lusty girl.” 

The recognisability of Jumpy (sorry, you’ll have to watch to the end to discover why that’s the title) is one of its great strengths.  My guest has a pre-teen daughter and I notice that when she isn’t giggling, she is looking horrified.  Seeing this might actually be helpful. The riveting scene when both sets of parents gather to discuss the implications of a possible pregnancy is very reminiscent of the classic scene, which in its time made a real impact, in Roger Hall’s Middle-Age Spread.  Somehow this similarity makes Jumpy an even better choice to mark the Fortune’s 40^th Anniversary as a professional theatre.

Keep asking the hard questions, Fortune: how have the values we passionately embraced when young served us through life?  What is this parent/child bond? How the hell do you love and let go? 

And if possible, make us also laugh this hard while you do it … 

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