The last two major productions of the Northland Youth Theatre have been remarkable: epic journeys through lands of myth, metaphor and magic. The latest offering, Peter Larsen’s Albert Black, is a dramatic change of gear. If The Blue Airplane and The Odyssey were banquets for the senses, Albert Black is food for the brain. 

Sensory perceptions still abound. In this clever Jarrod Martin-directed production (in the now recognisable NYT house style) there are numerous ‘coups de theatre’ but the subject matter and the territory in which this play works is both more familiar and more rigorous than the two previous excursions. 

Albert Black was a teenage immigrant from Northern Ireland – a Ten Pound Pom – who arrived in New Zealand in the 1950s and was hanged for murder. (Larsen’s play is based on Redmer Yska’s All Shook Up: the Flash Bodgie and the Rise of the New Zealand Teenager in the 1950s.) 

When I first heard it was to be the next NYT production, I raised several eyebrows. The subject matter seemed unlikely for a bunch of Whangarei kids and it seemed (to me) to be a small, intimate tale, with little opportunity for the large cast that the NYT demands. 

But Peter Larsen saw much more than I did. He saw both the epic and the relevance in the story, and the often splendid result is evident for all to see. 

Albert Black isn’t only about Albert Black. He is the central character and guides us through the world that he and we encounter, but more as a commentator than a participant and his most intimate (and touching) relationship is with a hedgehog. The play is really about a generation of Kiwi teenagers, the rebellious Bodgies and Widgies who are the vanguard of the coming revolution of the young that began with rock’n’roll and would sweep the world in the Sixties.

I suppose the word of the evening is nihilism, and we are introduced to it with Albert’s arrival in NZ, when he is stopped by immigration officials and “the rules of behaviour” expected of him are explained. Immediately, there is conflict. Albert is addicted to Mickey Spillane novels but those novels are banned in NZ. 

But Mickey Spillane – or the attitudes his books represent – are the subtext of the evening: music, madness and “moider.” 

As to music, I shall be quite surprised if Austyn Mills’ terrific song (in the role of Rainton) is the last time he sings in public. Madness? Well, the collective craziness of teenagers, at least. Which leaves “moider.”

There are three “moiders” in the course of the play, and the structured, conformist world that the immigration officials represent is almost immediately shattered by the first of them – the Parker-Hulme case, when two teenage girls, arguably lesbian lovers, killed the mother of one of them. 

The murder itself is most shockingly shown, an extraordinary riot of blood, and the inclusion of this tale is a master-stroke, setting up the essential nihilism of the youth among which Albert Black has found himself. 

Of course, it moves the focus of the play from Albert to others, but that gives Mr Larsen the freedom to explore the conflict between that nihilism and the official attempts to eradicate it, or at least constrain it. The young people he gives us as characters are an engaging lot, and none of their antics are particularly shocking to us who have come out the other side of this revolution that they unwittingly started. These teenagers drink and copulate and generally give the two finger salute to their elders – whom they don’t see as their betters, simply as adults mysteriously dictating their behaviour. Teenagers were ever thus; tatts and piercings are simply the more modern (if already slightly dated) symbols of the age-old rebellions of the young.  

In this generational sweep a few characters stand out, but there is no sense of imminent danger to any of them, except that relentless battle with authority. So when young Freddie Foster engagingly plans his own little coup to win back his girl we already guess that it is possibly not the brightest plot ever hatched, but it is quite shocking when the result is – moider. 

Well death, anyway. As shown by Mr Larsen, the last thing Freddie intends is that anyone, especially his girl-friend, shall die, but almost inevitably, someone does. All for love, because part of the key to it is Ebony Fairclough’s lovely performance as Sharron, the girl-friend, making Freddie’s desire to win her back completely understandable.

Freddie may be one of the triumphs of the evening.  Another Ten Pound Pom, already married (in Australia) and thus a potential bigamist, Freddie is so likeable – and in Michael Hemming’s wonderful performance so pumped up with his own enthusiasm – that we don’t want his plan to go wrong even though we suspect it will. Yet there is no sentimentality here. Freddie’s back-story in Australia is presented with clarity and honesty, and the loss of this then pregnant wife’s child is another tiny – but quite shocking – moment, in a play filled with tiny, but shocking moments. 

The death, when it happens, is tiny – almost unnoticeable except for the loud crack of a gun – and shocking, both to us and to Freddie. 

So what has been a fairly riotous, if at times quite violent, first act ends with tragedy and the potential victory of authority. The second act moves into much darker territory because it deals with – as it must – retribution. 

I don’t want to give the play away to you, so I’ll just say that there are moments in the second act that are deeply disturbing. I shall not easily forget Freddie’s mother, who flies to New Zealand to try and save her son from the gallows: her interview with the Minister of Justice, her pleading for Freddie’s life, him justifying Freddie’s death. It is awful in the best sense of the word.  And if you think that this is territory beyond the acting skills of a group of untrained teenagers, then Tegan Payne’s heartrending cries – “He is my son” – should make you rethink your attitude. 

There is an inevitably about the rest of the play. We know, because Albert told us at the very start of the play, that he will die. What we have been shown are the processes that lead both to his crime and to the punishment that awaits him. 

Once Freddie is gone, the way is clear to Albert’s ending. His friendship with Oswald, the hedgehog, is another small, if unlikely, triumph and provides a moment of violence that is almost upsetting. By comparison, the murder of Johnny McBride, by Albert, is almost casual, almost understandable, and then the processes take over again: justice in retribution mode. 

I might wish for more of the victim’s curious back-story, but Trent Reyburn gives us all that is necessary: a disturbed youth given too easily to violence and bullying, and the effect is frightening in the way that it may have frightened Albert. 

The condemned Albert is weighed daily, and again it’s awful because we know that one day he won’t be weighed anymore. I might have wanted more interaction between Albert and the other prison staff, but maybe that’s me being sentimental, because Frankie Mulcare is almost comically disengaged, more intrigued by Albert’s inevitable weight loss, and Asti Smith, as the representative of the prison guards, strikes a terrific balance between authority and consideration. 

The execution, when it happens, is filled with the contradictions of the evening, because the actor’s physical safety relies on others – somehow making it a community experience, which, of course, capital punishment inevitably is. 

I could yearn for Albert’s attitude to his own death to be explored in greater depth, but maybe that is the sentimentalist in me again, because Albert goes to the gallows wishing his executioners a Merry Christmas, which seems entirely in keeping with his character as presented here. And I have to take my hat off to Chris King, as Albert, who holds the evening together in a completely charming performance – which is his first ever role. More experienced actors have better technique but few will have Mr King’s disarming honesty and affability, nor the irony of it, because we cannot help but like the murderer. 

I don’t want to suggest the play is perfect; I’m pretty sure it is a work-in-progress if only because of the size of the cast. Few professional theatres will be able to provide such numbers and it deserves a future. It may not yet be the play it will become, but already it is an event of some importance, because Mr Larsen has staked out a powerful and provocative territory, filled with felicities and triumphs. Nor do I want to diminish the work of Jarrod Martin in any way, the captain of the volatile team, when I say that the stars of the evening are the cast. 

I am always a bit conflicted when writing about the NYT. I try not to make allowances for the fact that they are not professional actors, and yet I must, because they are not. These are not even amateur actors; they are kids embarked on a (multi) school project with particularly demanding disciplines. The show must go on and the public must get its money’s worth. What is constantly surprising to me is the level of their success.   

With Albert Black, these young people have been given a formidable (some might say impossible) task and have risen to the challenge like champions. If I have singled out a few, it is because they are representative of the energy and enthusiasm of the collective. 

We are lucky to have that collective, and what I always get from the NYT is the sense that, if these kids have anything to do with it, the future is in safe hands. 

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