BE A FLY ON THE MOTEL WALL 

When the rich and famous like Whitney Houston or John Belushi die in the room of an expensive hotel, it makes the news and the establishment puts its rates up.  When Sex Pistol Sid Vicious stabbed his girlfriend to death on the bathroom floor of Room 100, it put the Chelsea Hotel on the map.  Everyone wants to talk to the concierge who was the target of Russell Crowe’s phone rage. 

MOTEL, playing  the Basement Theatre from August 13^th, is a drama of four vignettes set in one slightly seedy motel room where the unrelated stories and “guests” are linked by the Motel Manager whose own secrets are eventually revealed. 

Jenny needs the room to have sex with a stranger. 

Pearl and Harry need the room for peace.  But peace comes at a price. 

A travelling salesman who sees the world through rose tinted glasses and drinks from a glass half full, is changed forever when he meets the motel manager. 

Annabel needs the room for a casual affair, but then she meets the housekeeper from Hell. 

Luxury hotels epitomise how the other half live and how the other half die.  Surrounded by opulence and scandal and immortalised forever within the walls of a grand building. 

But a motel is a metaphor for the life the ordinary person.  You and I.  The “average Joe” who just passes through life, making no great difference to the world.  We may leave a mess behind.  Trash the room.  Leave dirty laundry.  Steal the towels.  Or simply pass through unnoticed.  No legacy.  No accountability.  We’re all just passing through. 

There’s an anonymity about backwater Motels that’s attractive to many.  Couples needing a room for illicit affairs.  Cons hiding out or dealing drugs.  Somewhere to lie low.  Somewhere to hide. 

April Phillips is the award winning New Zealand writer of international hit plays STiFF, and Death & Taxe$, and of the film Letter For Hope.  Phillips writes about ordinary people facing extraordinary moral dilemmas.  Her aim is to create believable characters and situations that the audience will relate to so that they will leave the theatre wondering whether they themselves would have made the same choices. 

The Basement Theatre season of “MOTEL”is the professional premiere produced by Cas’n’Ova Productions.  Todd Rippon directs a cast of powerhouse stage and screen actors, including Kenneth Blackburn ONZM, Lorae Parry, Peter Hayden, Renee Sheriden, Ruth Dudding, Coen Falke, Leisha Ward-Knox and Cameron Rhodes in a sequence of four provocative and thrilling stories. 

Rippon has created an intimate setting for the play and poses the question:  Have you ever wondered what was going on through the paper thin wall?  The shouting, the banging headboard, the cackles, the screams, the sudden silence?  Those titillating sounds that intrigue and tease. 

’Motel’:  Come… be a fly on the wall. 
www.moteltheplay.com 

MOTEL plays:
13^th – 24^th August 2013, 8.00 pm
4.00 pm Matinees on Saturday 17th and Saturday 24th 
The Basement, Lower Greys Avenue, Auckland CBD
Tickets: $25 – $30 (booking fees may apply)
Bookings: iTicket – www.iticket.co.nz or 09 361 1000

CAST
Ken Blackburn – The Manager
Renée Sheridan – Jenny
Coen Falke – Ben
Peter Hayden – Harry
Lorae Parry – Pearl
Cameron Rhodes – Elvis
Liesha Ward Knox – Annabel
Ruth Dudding – Janet

CREW
Lucie Everett-Brown – Stage Manager
Amber Molloy – Operator

PRODUCTION
Craig Hutchison – Producer
Ali Robb – Production Assistant