To say this is staged ‘in the altogether’ is not to suggest the cast is naked, although some in the audience feel a bit exposed. We each have to choose a single chair among those randomly scattered throughout the oblong room (known as the SEEyD Space). Each is set to more-or-less face the centre of the room, the walls of which are festooned with mirrors and fairy lights. And there are balloons. Balloons feature in multiple creative ways. There is no separate acting space, as such.

Director Leo Gene Peters and production designer Rose Kirkup have ingeniously integrated us with the actors in the world of Black Confetti where, despite being part of a community, each of us is alone. The mirrors seem to expand this world, even help us see around corners; they also turn it, and us, us back in on itself/ ourselves, reflecting the nature of lives we’ll either recognise or be introduced to. As for the balloons: as often as not the festivity they promise disappears with a pop. It is inspired design.  

Eli Kent, Leon Wadham, Leo Gene Peters and the cast have thoroughly revised the 2012 original (developed and premiered by the Auckland Theatre Company), dropping some characters, adding new ones and significantly changing key plot elements. For example Billy, who was sold the titular drug despite his heart condition and so died before the play began, is replaced by Tom (Logan Cole) whose warm greeting to us all gets increasingly weird and ill-expressed.

He too has taken the black powder and his resulting condition is a somewhat peripheral concern to his supposed friends, preoccupied as they are with their own pressing issues, until they get focused and come together as best they can to “stage an intervention”. (As I recall it, the Tom question replaces Siggy’s search for this father as the play’s narrative spine.)  

Siggy (Joe Witkowski) has spent seven years failing to pass 100-level papers at university – much to the despair of the Dean and his Career Counsellor (Tess Sullivan plays both). This suggests Siggy and his peers are just past their mid-20s; an age when most of their parents were already parents, but no-one in this Millennials group (seen as Gen-Y in the original) is anywhere near committing to that sort of future. Indeed the ‘intervention’ scene sparks a major squabble about commitment.

Katie (Ruby Love), just back from Berlin and conflicted as to whether she should stay or return, is instantly recognisable. Her ‘first love’ boyfriend, now just good friend, Elvis (Jack Parker), seems to be the most involved in the drug scene, as an intermediary dealer – the king-pin dealer being depicted as a luminescent balloon-head (in the original it was Elvis’s Uncle Ray; now dropped as a named character).

There’s a scene towards the end where Elvis prevails on his schoolgirl sister (Liv Parker) to bring him drugs. Apart from the fascinating status dynamics, her asking her brother to pass on prosaic messages to their Mum and Nan adds an unsettling resonance to the scene.

Phil (Conor Cameron) is a high-achieving counterpoint to Siggy, yet The System seems equally incapable of accommodating him. While Katie regards Siggy as a “lovable douche”, Phil has no compunction in delivering home-truths to him. That we feel such empathy and compassion for Siggy points to the quality of the writing and performance. Given a red nose he could become a tragic clown figure. 

His ability, at one of the many parties, to attract Flo (Jess Quilter), despite her already having a boyfriend, may be due to his innate sex-appeal or her unerring capacity to fall for losers, or both.  But the the course of their relationship is one of the many plot threads that enliven this loosely-woven portrait of a generation beset with loose ends that have yet to find a meaningful place in the proverbial tapestry of contemporary life. 

Manic Suzie (Liv Parker) is another new character, who is relegated to the status of ‘joke’ although there is doubtless a story behind her way of being that could engender more compassion. Parker also plays the Mums of Katie and Flo, one of whom (Katie’s, I think) is into New Age rituals, one of which is employed in the aforementioned ‘intervention’. That it seems to work is a ‘bum note’, for me, in a play that’s otherwise full of insights into how life can be for this age group these days.

I also can’t help feeling that the one-dimensional ‘send up’ nature of the Mum characters, and the Dean and Career Counsellor, reduces their potential to engage us in the spaces between their points of view and those of the younger generation. On the other hand a highly effective device is employed with Siggy’s over-prescribing Doctor (Tess Sullivan again), whereby her professional manner is contrasted with an impassioned outburst of what she’s really thinking. This compels us to grapple with our own judgements, which is always a good thing in theatre.

Tom’s voice gets an eerie amplification while he’s tripping. There’s a cameo scene that speaks volumes about the sexual ethics of Siggy’s dad and his mother’s response, which deepens our understanding of Siggy’s dysfunction. Elvis comes into his own when he sets out to discover who sold Tom the ‘black confetti’ – and here an audience-participation device is used that worked very well in the Leo Gene Peters-directed Don Juan (or was it Jekyll & Hyde, or both?). Many more surprising devices enliven the production.  

That said, while the ‘in the altogether’ non-staging effectively includes us in their world, it does limit our ability to tune into subtext; into the unspoken thoughts and feelings of characters, where the ‘get it’ factor so often lurks ready to spring. My guess is we could gain more insight into all of them, Elvis and Susie especially, in a more focused setting.

It’s a trade-off, I suppose, with the experiential pleasures offered by ‘immersive theatre’ conventions. Plus the ‘poor theatre’ creativity inherent in this production equips the soon-to-graduate students well for some of the ‘no budget’ work some will go on to make.

Each actor commits wholeheartedly to their character(s) and/or caricatures and as an ensemble they work superbly together. Black Confetti alternates with The Antigone Sound as Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School’s major Third Year (Acting) productions (click on the link for details and bookings). As always this is your chance to see some talents emerging who will doubtless become well known in the years to come. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer