Being handed a tasting tray of four very different beers as we enter BATS’ Heyday Dome space subverts my assumptions about what’s in store and what the title of this solo show – Blonde Mountain Wolf Man – actually stands for. Each beer is assigned one of those words, and those words also relate directly to Craig Connor Geenty’s names.

The challenge to resist tasting the beers until invited to during the show reminds me of those TV shows studying the behaviour for four year olds. Fortunately our mature self-discipline pays off.

Craig’s brown tights, check shirt with a belt at the waist and fur-lined trapper hat suggest a swash-buckling hero in the Robin Hood mode, or one of his Merry Men, but it turns out this garb owes more to Irish folklore and the Geenty’s dancing Irish King ancestor, Niall.

Traversing his own growth to maturity while reaching back through the family history, Craig performs with a gentle affability that accommodates whatever may happen and whoever is in the audience (a row of his countless relations are present this opening night).

An array of plant pots, each bearing an initial, is used to represent different generations of the family tree. As for the spade – its significance emerges at the end, in relation to a mystery that may or may not involve murder; a family secret that has gone to the graves of Graig’s forbears, concerning the fate of his paternal great-grandfather, Joseph.  

Each of the tale’s four parts begins with a tasting, a description of the beer’s properties and the reason for its assigned name – a convivial way of bringing us together and refocussing our interest.

Although Part One begins in 1921, in the ‘untamed’ Hawkes Bay valley Joseph cleared with his own bare hands, and establishes the mystery of the patriarch’s disappearance, the back-story of how Joseph set forth of his adventure and only just made it to these shores in 1894 is revealed.

Part Two explores the maternal line which brings performing arts into the family. The romance between the touring actors who are destined to become parents of Craig’s great grandmother, Isabella, is played out as a silent melodrama. We learn why she too came to New Zealand, with her father and ‘black sheep’ brother. And Craig’s own OE, on a farm-working exchange to Denmark, allows him to consider the heritage of some of his personal traits, by way of ‘the tractor incident’.  

The rugged bushman, Joseph – who now runs a horse-and-cart service and a blacksmith’s shop – and refined young pianist, Isabella, meet each other in Part Three, at a dance in Napier. Yearly pregnancies over 18 years see 14 children survive before Isabella dies at 41.  

The small cup of pale ale we raise to herald the start of Part Four gives us a chance to toast Isabella and contemplate her fate. What follows – where the oldest daughter, Molly, becomes ‘mother’ to her siblings could, I feel, be dramatised better in the lead-up to Joseph’s disappearance and Craig’s canvassing of three possible explanations. Perhaps the plant pots could come into their own as a way of suggesting the possible family dynamics, and the above and below-ground dimensions. I do understand, however, that it’s sensitive territory that should not lapse into gossip and rumour.*

It’s an epic saga Craig Geenty shares in just 50 minutes and although he did a development season last year in Palmerston North, I sense he will become more fluent and playful as this short season continues. His creative ingenuity in digging over a fascinating historical plot is to be applauded.  

*See here to see what I mean. As the media release indicates, it’s the ‘why?’ that’s the biggest mystery.

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Blonde Mountain Wolf Man is Craig Geenty’s brand new solo comedy show, where he takes the audience for a romp through his family tree, from his genetic roots in England to his New Zealand pioneering stock with a little mystery, and the wreck of the SS Wairarapa, thrown in to boot.

Based around his great grandparents, Joseph and Isabella – one descended from the wool trade, the other from solid artistic stock – Craig Geenty’s story is funny and engaging; interesting enough to hold the audience’s attention all the way through.

Using props to mark each ancestor through the generations is a nice touch and they give the audience a visual representation of time passing. This is a great little show and well worth seeing. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer