Lovers of Central Park by James Hadley is the self-styled ‘most romantic show in the fringe’. It offers both entertainment and exercise for the audience.  Following our guides through the dappled prettiness and the seedy grey areas of Brooklyn’s Central Park, we’re on the lookout for lovers; past, present and future, new and old loves, lost and found loves.

It’s a tour not only through the park and through these different kinds of love, but through time.  Lovers from the 18th century race past those from the 19th and almost collide with ones from now and a few years’ hence.  Once you have the characters firmly in your mind it’s easy to pick up the threads of their different stories. 

James Hadley’s stories start in 1855 and move through to 2011.  The couple from the future, Lil and Coop (played with much compassion by Marjorie McKee and Barry Lakeman) are the anchors of the production in many ways, an example of enduring love and love in adversity when around them the ghosts of the past lovers are fighting, crying, running and dying. 

Hadley doesn’t shy away from the dark side of love/sex and when they come they are genuinely shocking.  It’s a fraction too long but pace is hard to maintain in promenade theatre.  Strongly recommended.  NB: if you get hay fever it may pay to take a tablet before you go.

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To crib a line from one of the guides, it’s much more than just a walk in the park.

Catching a preview on a balmy Waitangi Day night I’m thrilled to say Fringe 07 promises to open with at least one delightfully ingenious show. Lovers of Central Park invited its audience to stroll through the park where 25 actors, who have worked with 6 directors, play out 8 scenarios ranging from 1855 to 2011.

Kids on the cusp of childhood and adolescent love explore beyond the beaten track … A Māori couple find love but lose their land to a settler … A well-born randy cad has his way with a willing and trusting Irish maid … A Brooklyn shop girl succumbs to the charms of a young US naval rating … Two elegant ladies in illicit love confront the dilemma of one moving to Christchurch where her husband has been transferred …

An ailing gay film-maker tries to cope with his young lover’s relative promiscuity … Two heterosexual would-be couples duck and dive between the rock of commitment and fantasy of freedom … An ageing and apparently homeless couple, who could be refugees from a Samuel Beckett play, are trying to escape a pandemic that turns out to be in the future (2011), and one is inextricably linked to what happens to one of the kids, 27 years earlier.

We witness these interweaving scenarios in a variety of settings, open and enclosed, sunny and shaded, through literal ups and downs (wear good shoes) at the behest of three guides – a good solid Kiwi bloke (or is he?), a heart-aching torch-singer and a tree-hugging hippie.

The way the stories physically intersect, with the vistas before us offering intriguing and enriching depths of field, more than justifies the outdoor setting and asking the audience to follow the action body and sole.

Writer James Hadley has created readily recognised characters and moved them – and us – through well structured scenarios that reveal a wide range of all-too-human behaviour. And just as it all seems destined for disaster with no happy endings in sight, a finale is fashioned that leaves us with positive vibes.

Sure it could probably be edited down and tightened up without much loss of storyline. Some dialogue sequences are a bit dense for the setting and acoustics. But my interest never flagged through the 2 hour stop-start stroll (30 mins longer than the Fringe brochure suggests).

Lovers of Central Park is a unique and special experience that delivers on content as well as form.
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