While there have been documentary films about the Christchurch earthquake little has been written for the stage.

And although Boxed doesn’t actually document the effect of the earthquake it does show, through music and dialogue, how the minutiae of everyday life in Christchurch fades into insignificance when considering what the after-effects of the earthquake will be.

With music and lyrics by Waylon Edwards and story by William Duignan, the show was originally titled Red Bus with promotional material describing how the production would replicate a bus journey of bored Cantabrian’s travelling from Sumner to central Christchurch moments before the earthquake hit. 

The current production is now set in a café called Boxed, with everything on the set made of cardboard boxes. 

Seven fictional characters sit around drinking and talk about their lives and loves until a heated discussion occurs over the advances of an older man on a school girl at which point the earthquake hits, rather anti-climatically, and the show finishes.

The creative team have however come up with some well written and poignant moments of dialogue and songs about these people although there are some rather cringe moments as well. And even though these could be anybody sitting in a café anywhere in NZ, resilience was a major factor of all their lives and which was specifically needed by all Cantabrian’s after the quake. 

Two senior citizens enter the café first, Barb (Mary Louise Thomas), living alone now her husband is in care suffering from Alzheimer’s and Richard (Kent Robinson) a retired divorce lawyer.

Then comes in an American tourist Amy (Sarah Andrews Reynolds) on her way home after staying with gay Chris (Jeff Bell), a small business owner from Geraldine whom she met many years ago in San Francisco. Chris is having problems with his boyfriend Mike.

Then Kate Moon arrives, a 17 year old school girl born in Christchurch but of Korean parents, played by a European, Sophie Scott-Maunder, to break the stereotyping mould so the Narrator says, and Eliza (Ellie Neal), a hyper active drama student at NASDA with her boyfriend Tim (Jonathan Harris).

When not providing musical accompaniment the writer, William Duignan, acts as Narrator and Waiter. While his story is the most real, having lived through the earthquake, his performance is somewhat cheesy, not knowing if he is a comedian or storyteller. 

Under the direction of Moana Ete the strong cast perform with lots of energy moving the show along from song to song. 

In particular, Barb, Amy and Kate’s poignant song ‘When We Are Together’, about lost love, and Tim’s heartfelt solo after breaking up with Eliza, are good.

And a highlight of the show is Chris’s love lament to Mike and the subsequent nightclub number.

To close, after the earthquake, the Narrator sings a moving song about go forward ending the show on a positive note. 

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As we walk into the performance Musical Director Waylon Edwards and Writer /Musician /Performer Will Duignan are playing, casually greeting us from their instruments. Indeed, Duignan goes onto to say hi to known friends and family in the audience, claiming it’s not the show proper – just yet. But this feels a lie, as he says in his opening monologue – “incorrect use of the language belittles the form”. This is a wonderfully sly salvo, not only breaking the 4^th wall (do fringe shows still have 4^th walls?) but signaling this is a very personal show carefully wrought.

Simply put, Duignan plays Narrator and Waiter in a café during the 30 minutes before the Christchurch 7.1 earthquake whose 4^th anniversary occurs this Sunday. We are introduced to seven invented patrons’ stories through song, scenes and monologues. Interspersed through the show are monologues of Duignan’s experiences since moving to Wellington – “Were you there when it happened?” Simply put. 

This is not a simple show. Duignan’s Narrator/Waiter performs the task of a Playback Conductor – choosing characters for the rest of the cast to play, each handed a cardboard clipboard of character information. These actors take on, uneasily, the characters recognising the various stereotypes and their apparent shallowness. The dialogue directly makes it clear that these stereotypes are skin deep only, but the actors play along, creating a café ensemble like a family at Christmas.

All of the actors find stand-out moments as they develop the characters and flesh them out. Ellie Neal, as the young Musical Theatre Princess Eliza, creates possibly the most annoying character I’ve seen in a long time. While these are stereotypes she is hilarious as the self-absorbed ‘triple threat’ and when she does get her comeuppance she gets rightly deserved applause. One of the few times I’ve wanted to leave my seat and set fire to someone.

Kent Robinson (as lawyer Richard Head) and Sarah Andrews Reynolds (as tourist Amy Miller) are particularly strong and adept at dropping in one liners with beautiful timing. I’ll never look at Slash the same way again. 

At first I was a little disappointed that director Moana Ete choose the simplicity of monologists coming centre front each and every time to perform their story. But the revelation that slowly and beautifully creeps in the further we go into the show makes it a wonderful choice. Like the stereotypes, the performances are slightly awkward, they don’t sit in filmic naturalism, but support the “I-just-got-given-a-character” device. The mood clearly supports whose story this is. 

At first Duignan seems lively, clear and in control. As we progress he becomes more unfocused and on edge; his identity becomes sloshy – he is the Narrator /the waiter /Will / the writer. At times I thought we’d get a Company reference (singing Willy / Will / William rather than Bobby / Robert / Kiddo). This play is full of allusions and illusion as we, along with the cast, realise we might just be watching different aspects of William Duignan. From the Korean students he’s seen around (carefully and wittily played by Sophie Scott-Maunder) to the inner loss of Duignan’s city through Chris Foster’s (a jittery Jeff Bell) loss of his partner.  

The café starts 30 minutes before; but Duignan’s monologues, set outside the playing space against a black background floating in nowhere, starts with his experiences of being a ‘Christchurch refugee’ amongst people like myself in Wellington and seems to head back in time towards the quake – to the one particular event that created this auto-bio-experiental work.

Because we know it is Will Duignan’s story, there is a devastating honesty to this performance. I have family who were, and still are, affected by that quake, but nothing has allowed me to get under the skin of someone who was there like these monologues. For the first time I could feel something of what the ongoing legacy might be like.

This production would not have been an easy birth, certainly made more difficult by crass Press and I feel that the rebranding [from Red Bus, which caused the commotion] has focused the work. The dramatic changes that must have been made over the last week give the production a raw edge, sometimes verging on under rehearsed – the choric dialogue could be a lot tighter – but Moana Ete keeps a tight grip and it’s clear this is an ensemble dedicated to the work.

There’s some imbalances here though. Barbs (Mary Louise Thomas at her most affecting), Amy (Andrews Reynolds) and Kate (Scott-Maunder) surpass some slightly florid language to become a heartfelt trio, whilst Bell’s monologue feels a like he’s trying to wring the emotion out. Here a little of the simplicity may be key. Overall Ete does a fine job of reality vs creation – Duignan’s monologues sitting with said honest simplicity amongst this performative café. 

This is an “edgy, dirty, messy” musical and hats off to Waylon Edwards. In amongst many pop-mod references the Narrator quips “this isn’t Into The Woods” – and it isn’t. The opening number gives us a sense we are in for the usual: chorus, verse, etc. But Edwards only occasionally keeps to a traditional form. While perhaps not as dirty as I might have expected, characters get some meaty songs and recitative. The chorus work is strongest, not surprisingly, and you get a buzz from it, not only from the performance but from the lyrics.

I’m not a fan of mics in a small place, especially when the performers who are off mic are so easily heard and understood. On opening I find Robinson and Harris’ lyrics hard to discern, due to low vocal amplification. Neal and Harris’ duet is a delight, each mining the comedy, with Harris cleverly hinting at what was to come.

Song of the evening has to be Edward’s heart-stopping elegy (as Chris Foster’s San Francisco love); the audience on the edge of their seat still (and no mic in sight). One of the (many) strengths of this piece is the lyrics and their non-conformity to rhyme, giving characters’ internal feelings and their interactions a conversational reality. While Sondheim is clever, this is visceral.   

Boxed is the apposite title. The set is a floor of cardboard with tables and cardboard chairs (actually the stools have cardboard taped to their seats as if it’s jury rigged, much like the efforts of quake victims to jury rig their lives in the days after the event) in front of a wall of cardboard boxes. Wet cardboard and its solidity fails; cardboard can be crushed easily. It also holds your life when you move. This production ‘unpacks’ Duignan’s experiences. Again, what seems simple holds carefully considered meaning. 

Boxed leaves you in an unfinished space, and quite rightly so, but it does give you direction, a place to go. And it’s awesome … No, that’s incorrect use of language. It’s excellent.

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