Stands proud in the LCYT lexicon

Young Wellington playwright Ben Wilson (Post-It Notes, Almost Sober, Satisfied Customers, Fred is Cold, Call Me Bukowski, I’ll Be Fine) and director Keegan Bragg (who acted in Fred is Cold and Call Me Bukowski, and directed Post-It Notes and Almost Sober), are the ideal team to head up the latest Long Cloud Youth Theatre production. 

Breaks – four plays linked by the title’s multiple meanings and implications, and conversely the human need for connection – was, according to a programmes note, “partly developed through a devising process with the director and cast”. One hopes the writer was involved too, or maybe it’s just the directorial element that has been ‘devised’. Either way there is certainly a strong sense of ownership and commitment to the works, which are dramaturgically diverse while connected by plot and character elements as well as by the over-arching theme.

Within the expanse of Te Whaea’s D10 space (in the basement), one bank of seats faces a square stage area backed by black curtains. An unprepossessing clutter denotes the back room of a café (set design for all four plays by Ethan Morse; props and puppets by Sam Wahlers).

‘Work Break’ brings three quite different young women together as they take a break. Before a word is spoken we get that Evie (Sam Wahlers) is confident and languid while Richie (Stella Henderson) is bewildered, tongue-tied and has a tendency to stare. Carol (Katie Alexander), the duty manager, breaks the silence with an insensitive rant about Derek who has called in sick again, with depression, again.

All three get to express their major concerns and we get to compare and contrast their states of being – about to leave; just arrived; in charge and responsible to the business and its customers – and observe the changing dynamics. The phone message Richie leaves for her ex sets up a connection with the last play in the quartet.  

While the performances are impressively authentic, the awkward acoustics of this space leave key phrases unheard, thanks to downward inflections and the occasional softening of voices. This problem will recur all evening. (In fact the best-heard sequence will be in the last play when an actor facing upstage talks to herself in a mirror. That reflecting surface makes all the difference.)

The space is cleared, a censorious voice tells us to “stop running; this is an orphanage, not a playground”, an orchestral version of Johan’ Strauss’s ‘The Blue Danube’ begins to build and three eager faces peer through the curtains. Suddenly the performance space deepens to reveal a mountainous white-shrouded, light-peaked structure and a dolls house.

The three tunic-clad girls – Harriet (Piper Rogan), Celia (Jessica Soderberg) and Sophie (Lucy Glass) – use the dolls house to play out their poignant fantasy of a family home with parents. Thus we learn one wants to be a dancer, another an ocean swimmer and the third wants to go to a carnival.

But it’s bedtime and as the settle in two rows, the entire ensemble, in white night attire, are demeaned by the strict Dickensian headmistress (Charlie Tilley): “No wonder your parents didn’t love you.” Escape is clearly desired – this piece is called ‘Break-Out’ – and, abetted by a new arrival, Anne (Mia Oudes), all four sneak out. Anne has gifts in her bag that directly relate to the girls’ desires and facilitate an increasingly surreal sequence where their freedom is threatened by pig-snouted inmates.  

Inevitably caught and consigned to the basement, they discover a blue-haired boy called Vincent (Max Steel) who is incarcerated for killing a legendary figure synonymous with God in the eyes of the young. There is no chance of joy breaking out in this institution. But the staging – abetted throughout by Bekky Boyce’s lighting design, and costumes by Brit O’Rourke and Lucy Glass – is impressive.

‘Break-Up’ is an enigmatic and intriguingly dynamic two-hander involving Emma (Brit O’Rourke) and her brother David (Ethan Morse) – although they each introduce themselves as the other, much younger (David aged 8; Emma aged 11), when they lived as a family in Lyall Bay. This device feels more like a random trick than thematically on-point unless I’m missing something.

A wonderfully convincing sibling relationship manifests as they pack up their father’s abandoned VHS tapes and CDs and reminisce accordingly. But there is unresolved business involving who was there and who was not when it mattered – and obviously the titular break-up was a key catalyst for the change that upset the family equilibrium (presumably when they were 11 and 8). The way it erupts physically – suffice to say one of them gets undie-whipped – and resolves, disco-style, brings the very well-wrought scene to a climax and satisfying conclusion.  

While there are absurdist and surrealist elements in all four plays, ‘Breakthrough’ ups the ante towards Dadaism, although all can be explained rationally as the subjective ‘reality’ poet and horoscope writer Kate (Katherine Dewar) experiences. A ‘communication breakdown’ with her boss (Shauwn Keil) sees her shipped off to Retsay Island on leave – or not – where she encounters an old Wellington High friend with blocked memory syndrome, a lop-sided Bellhop, Cancer the Crab and Sagittarius the Archer, all played by Keil.  

Kate is a Pisces and fish also feature, as does Taurus and The Man in the Moon, as Kate confronts highly contemporary ethical issues concerning the company she works for. The entire ensemble fills out this weird yet familiar world in another example of well-staged scenes that make excellent use of the whole space.

There are strong links to the earlier plays, which helps to unify them all. Running at about 105 minutes (without an interval), Breaks can stand proud amid the many memorable Long Cloud Youth Theatre productions since I reviewed their Spring Awakening in 2008.  

Footnote: I trust, from tonight on, signage will be put up that directs those arriving at Te Whaea: The National Dance and Drama Centre from the upstairs foyer to the D10 space in the basement. 

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