This weekend, there is something quite unique going on at The Vic theatre and cinema, across Auckland harbour in the quiet suburb of Devonport. 

Artist Ant Glyph, aka Anthony Piggott, and his fellow collaborating artists from Fledge – a collective of musicians, artists, performers and technicians based primarily in Christchurch – have installed something of a ‘Happening’ in the old theatre/cinema space, out of which something new is going to develop. 

It’s described as a “deconstructed film thing”, and it is certainly that if you look at it from the perspective of the site-specific nature of the work. 

Arriving early, I wander upstairs to the other smaller cinemas and find an empty DJ space spinning quiet thoughtful tracks and in the other many music videos, short films & filmed events from the Fledge team’s many interesting years of working together, up on screen.

Right on performance time we’re allowed into the main space downstairs and the hall is awash with deep, evocative blue hues, a small white-cowled band to side of stage, a naked female being intricately body painted at the other, while the main stage is set with forced perspective panels as backdrop, two trestle tables and hand-made bench seating laid out with wine and bare food essentials, Last Supper styles. 

Religious ritual is certainly how this starts out.

After a brief filmed introduction into the idea of how words form as glyphs and there are only a set number of these markings to denote any given thought or action, the cowled cast shuffle down the aisle to the stage in a ritualistic fashion and seat themselves.  It’s all somewhat ominous. 

Once in, they launch into the hefty text, each carrying their own copy, that explores the life, memories and self-conscious musings of the author in a rather evocative and stylised fashion. 

Text moves swiftly and easily between different locales and times within the artist’s life, centralised on growing up in Dunedin in the 1970s and the turning point of taking drugs at a party at his older brother’s house which changed him immutably.  It also explores his deep-seated ideals as an artist in later life, his political and religious beliefs, the discomforts of sexuality and especially the confrontations of addictions – hence the title: Giving Up. 

There are individual insights and specifics thereof that are all very well, but the singularity of the piece defeats the larger objectives of the whole and seem a bit at odds with the collective approach of creation from this tight team. 

The gathered actors are all giving to the piece, playing various shades of the individual psyche at the core of the script and bringing plenty of their learned and natural craft to bear, whilst engaging and provoking in various shades throughout.  They are performing this ninety minute piece every two hours, both days, from midday to midnight, which must be something of a herculean effort to sustain over a whole weekend, no matter the self-discipline or personal fitness. 

However, despite meta ideas of the text being explored, with having scripts in hands as props, the impulse is always there to rely on it for clarity, so it is used as crutch by most and distracts as the performance goes on.  Ultimately this makes the execution of the work feel like a rather slick staged reading or rehearsal. 

The most outstanding part of the whole 90 minutes are the technical elements.  Sound is richly and immaculately balanced, controlled and coordinated by sound designer Toby Ricketts to create a backing to the performance and give the musicians their due respect within the space relative to the microphoned actors.  It is also lit very colourfully by a nicely integrated rig that evokes the required response within the whole theatre, while keeping the on-stage performers as the primary focus. 

As presented, this is more a deconstruction of self and theatre than it is a “deconstructed film thing”.  Despite being told that this is a finished work as it stands, I don’t quite understand the nature of what is being ultimately aimed-at for as the end product of this process (and I get the feeling that may be true of the writer/director too?). 

Is this simply the creation of another piece of history within the larger artistic narrative of Fledge Productions that we are being invited to witness?  If so, I’m interested enough to see what that will be when it is released into the world, but feel it might be a bit too demonstrably staged to make for an engaging film piece.  Right now, it’s in slightly too much of a state of flux to be able to be recognised as a complete work of art, even though it engages and speaks to many truths on both the personal and collective levels.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer