The competitive deviousness of the con artists in Gavin McGibbon’s first major play makes it clear that it is not the money that inspires them to do what they do so effortlessly. 

It’s the thrill of the game of being someone else, of manipulating the gullible and the greedy, of seeing how far the deceits and lies can be stretched.

Con artists are in fact actors, as the American actor John Lithgow has pointed out. “I make people believe something is real when they know perfectly well it isn’t.” And actors everywhere know only too well that money isn’t the purpose of their game either.

The play starts with Stevie (Mike Minogue) on the phone wheedling from a little old lady her pass word for her bank account. But his bossy, cynical, unscrupulous mate Earl (Paul McLaughlin) has bigger schemes afoot which involve a wealthy business man (Jason Whyte).

To mention anything more of the plot, except to say the relationship between the two men becomes more complicated when Holly (Acushla-Tara Sutton) arrives on the scene, would be to keep writing spoiler alerts.

There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot which provide the roller-coaster ride that the advertising for the play promises. But the ride is not as fast as most roller-coaster rides because there is an excess of talk, some of which is amusing, about past events, happiness, and relationships, so much so that in the first act, except for one powerful theatrical surprise, it felt as though Con would be just as effective as a radio play.

In the second act there are two or three moments that wouldn’t be effective on radio when, for example, we actually see two comparatively simple con tricks being carried out, one near Wellington railway station. Part of the enjoyment of watching a fictional con trick is to see it being constructed and carried out (e.g. the movie The Sting) but in Con for the major cons we are denied this.

Danny Mulheron and his cast and crew have delivered a smoothly efficient production for this world premiere.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Although most opening nights I go to in Wellington do tend, technically, to be world premieres, it is nice to be considering the possibility of a life outside of Wellington for the play, particularly since this is Gavin McGibbon’s first script performed at Circa. I feel like Circa has been a bit slow there to pick McGibbon up, and that this has been a long time coming, but then McGibbon doesn’t exactly churn out shows at the rate of some of his more prolific colleagues. He takes his time.

And he has a much better sense of plot to show for it and a script that demonstrates the merits of spending hours editing and fine-honing the details. I sincerely hope this script does go on to have a life elsewhere.

Not the Russian Business Network, not advertising spam (I would love to see a play about Vardan Kushnir but maybe that’s for someone else to write), not a Nigerian shut up in an internet café after hours pretending to be a blonde Slav, no one using an onion router to avoid detection, the con artists in this play are old school, traditional, trustworthy confidence-winners. They do not deal with massive disembodied, dehumanised data blocks of stolen credit card details sold through the internet’s black market for a few dollars, but they meet their victims face to face and play psychology for all its worth, which inevitably turns on itself.

Without wanting to divulge too much of the story, I will simply say again that McGibbon has a wonderful sense for plot as an art and a craft. (One would hope so, since he has just submitted his PhD thesis in scriptwriting.) 

Sharply directed by Danny Mulheron with excellent pace, Con is comedic and a little brutal. And how do they do that thing with the briefcase? “Every play should have a magic trick,” comments an audience member. 

Paul McLaughlin, Mike Minogue and Acushla-Tara Sutton make up the three principal characters while Jason Whyte fills in the various other partners with his usual talent for appearing surprisingly different from character to character. 

Essentially the play revolves around the concept of absolution: whether or not we need it, how we might get it, and whether our anger and bitterness can be released, our guilty consciences assuaged in a post-religious society. Although we no longer believe in God and acknowledge the arbitrariness of justice (conman Earl bewails the justice system as “a joke”) and the relativity of morality, what do we do with our persistent sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’? Is there any purpose for sympathy and empathy, and is there any such thing as a selfless act? Do we need a Higher Power to be free of alcoholism or are humans enough on their own? Can people actually change? 

The story grew from a personal experience with a scammer, with the playwright asking the question of, “What would it take for a con artist to reconsider?” I’m not sure if the question is answered here or not, and without actually finding a con artist and asking him (getting him to tell the truth) it might be hard to come to an answer. The play certainly concludes, but it is inconclusive, and this feels very deliberate.

My sympathies switch from character to character throughout the play and by the end I feel conned so many times that I’m angry at being unable to cheer anyone on, so in a way, even the play itself, for the audience, is a con. Which is probably the point. Surely art is to ask us questions, not to provide the answers.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer