Kreskinned: The natural Canadian date drug
Happy (Cnr Tory & Vivian), Wellington
17/02/2009 - 21/02/2009
Production Details
LOOK DEEP INTO MY EYES…
WELLINGTON COMEDY GETS A HYPNOTIC SHAKE-UP
Two leading Canadian actors will make their New Zealand debut at the Wellington Fringe Festival next month. D’Arcy Smith and Andrea Tutt play two eccentrics that find love – with the nebulous help of a stage hypnotist – in Kreskinned: The natural Canadian date drug.
Written by Canadian playwrights Michael Healey and Kate Lynch, Kreskinned is a quirkily comic tale about mental suggestion, dating and dog walking.
Set in the 1980s heyday of hypnosis shows, Kreskinned tells the story of Dennis and Joyce, two wonderfully awkward 30-somethings sent on a blind date to see renowned mentalist, the Amazing Kreskin.
After offering themselves up for public hypnosis, Joyce and Dennis realize they have the power to hypnotize each other with their personal ‘trigger words’. The lovers use their newfound mental abilities to erase offensive anecdotes, underwhelming sexual performance, forgotten birthdays and flatulence, to cringingly comic effect.
This fresh new production of Kreskinned is directed by Rachel More. She has directed many successful productions in Wellington, including Under Milkwood (Downstage) and This is Our Youth (Circa).
Says More: "It’s delightful – if somewhat absurd – to be introduced to the quirky nature of Canadian comedy."
Real life husband and wife team D’Arcy Smith and Andrea Tutt take the roles of Dennis and Joyce. D’Arcy and Andrea met whilst playing lovers in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ six years ago. They recently moved to New Zealand when D’Arcy was appointed Senior Tutor of Voice and Speech at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School.
Kreskinned is laugh out loud fun for anyone who has ever had a nerve-wracking first date.
Kreskinned: The natural Canadian date drug.
Homeless Moose Theatre Company
7.00pm
17 – 21 February 2009
HAPPY
Corner of Tory and Vivian Street
Wellington
$12 concession
$16 full price
Tickets are available through:
www.downstage.co.nz/book.
Door sales are also available.
Kreskinned is presented in association with the Canadian High Commission
CAST
Dennis: D'Arcy Smith
Joyce: Andrea Tutt
CREATIVE TEAM
Playwrights: Michael Healey & Kate Lynch
Director: Rachel More
Marketing: Rebecca Galloway
Design: Jo Richardson
Original Music: Alistair Campbell
Sound Design: Allan Henry
Engaging quirky comedy
Review by John Smythe 19th Feb 2009
"You can’t start with a pause!’ opines a dodgy critic in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound. But this play does, with a good long one: a woman and a man at a café table, lost for words. And before, in the pre-start blackout, was that her making chook noises; was that him making car noises …? Weird.
It turns out Joyce and Dennis, both socially challenged, had been set up on a date at a hypnotist show. They both went up on stage, now they are ‘seeing each other’ … And their trigger words still work. So as their dating progresses, whenever one stuffs up – you know those ‘wish I hadn’t said/done that’ moments? – they only have to say the word, the other drops off, and when they are snapped out of it the memory is obliterated. What they return to is the moment they mutually fell in love.
It’s like a magical power: the ‘let’s start over’ spell. But how do we use such a ‘gift’? This is the central question in Kreskinned: the Natural Canadian Date Drug and Canadian couple Andrea Tutt and D’Arcy Smith, with director Rachel More, do an excellent job of teasing it out.
They compel us to engage with the choices they make and to ask ourselves what we would do in their position. As for the quirky comedy’s ending … Put it this way: if it was him, not her, that did what she does, would we be so amused? It’s worth going to face that question alone.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Factoid: Thanks to Google I now know hypnotist (sorry: mentalist) The Amazing Kreskin was a big name in Canada late last century but I doubt many people outside North America know of him. He’s never mentioned in the play (first produced 1998). So the verb ‘to be Kreskinned‘ is a mystifying and I think alienating part of the title for us.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
Comments