Am I A Surfer Now?
PowWow, 74 Courtenay Place (above Dakota), Wellington
07/08/2024 - 07/08/2024
02/10/2024 - 03/10/2024
Production Details
Writer and performer – Elisa Bonnafous
After making her daring escape from the streets of Paris, Elisa is taking on New Zealand one wave at a time with her work-in-progress show Am I a Surfer Now?
With boundless energy and infectious laughter, Elisa invites you into her colourful world, where cultural mishaps and hilarious misadventures are all part of the ride: escaping city life, learning to surf at New Zealand beaches, and finally figuring out some of the local lingo.
Tackling the differences between the French and Kiwis with her trademark curiosity, Elisa takes you on a journey that’s as entertaining as it is relatable. Join her for an evening of uproarious anecdotes, cultural quirks and unforgettable, French-accented humour that will leave you in stitches!
Perspectives don’t get more unique than this! It’s observational comedy from a 30-something who moved to the other side of the globe to find out what life is really all about. Grab a drink or two and get ready to laugh about why we even say “sweet as”.
Snap up your tickets to this unforgettable comedy extravaganza that will leave you laughing long after the final curtain falls.
*Warning: contains strong language.
The Pow Wow Room, 74 Courtenay Place, Level 1, Wellington
Date: 7th August, 8pm
Tix: $20 GA; $15 Concession
WHANGĀREI FRINGE 2024
Fringe After Dark, Upstairs at The Strand Shopping Centre, 34 Bank Street, Whangārei
Wednesday 2 October 6pm
Thursday 3 October 7:30pm
TIckets: https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2024/am-a-surfer-now/whangarei
Comedy , Theatre , Solo ,
1 hour
Fearless? Definitely. But also charming, absurd, and ultimately very funny.
Review by Matt Keene 03rd Oct 2024
Early in Elisa Bonnafous’ “Am I A Surfer Now?”, she yells at the audience “Don’t call me brave – I don’t want a participation prize!”. But how else do you describe someone who moves to Aotearoa from Paris in 2022 and amongst an array of other creative activities, creates a 1 hour standup routine and delivers it to a live audience (in a second language!) that pokes fun at that ultimate sacred cow of Kiwi cool, surfing.
Bonnafous’ routine is observational. It holds up a mirror for the audience and allows us to see, through the eyes of someone from the other side of the world, just how strange many of our sayings, traits and behaviours really are. To a person from a culture where food is to be enjoyed, savoured and slowly consumed with friends and family, the act of taking a single slice of bread and dumping half a tin of spaghetti on top of it is bewildering. Similarly, coming from a country where striking from work for better conditions is expected and seen as a symbol of social victory, Kiwis’ determination to avoid conflict at any costs baffles her. But it is our predilection for not wearing shoes which she finds the most unusual and which she suspects is actually some form of ritualistic training to enable crossing asphalt and hot sand on the way to the surf without sustaining a blister the size of a fist on the sole of your foot.
Bonnafous doesn’t spare the people she lived with either. We hear an absurd and relatable joke about how she sustained an injury that left her bedridden for 3 weeks just so she could try and start a conversation with 2 prickly Parisiens. That the resulting injury, sustained by showing off, did not achieve its goal and yet was also the catalyst for her moving to Aotearoa left her to muse that perhaps the universe really does work in mysterious ways.
So how do you describe (in a way that is not condescending!) that this is a brave performance while also acknowledging the perception and observation required to have understood so much about our culture in 2 years and then share it with an audience in your second language? Courageous? Fearless? Definitely. But also charming, absurd, affectionate, and ultimately very funny.
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