The Theatre As Is is the newest kid on the block, and one that comes with its own sandbox. The As Is space is the upstairs room stripped back and converted into an open space for workshops, rehearsals and performances.

Tonight it has a choice of plastic seats, sofas and chairs for your comfort. The playing space is defined by black floor and lack of carpet and the set is also stripped back: the playing space, a ladder, a chair, a mercury light hanging low and a scrim/cyc of green mesh adding some colour.

What plays out in that space and through our seating area is a wonderful journey from the future and back.

The performance is presented in four sections / scenes / acts and each is a well developed and layered playing in the space between the real / unreal; memory / performance; and future / history. Each section is also presented in its own world of theatrical reality.

The first, reminiscent of Beckett, has a couple existing in the future. Absurdist style logic and look means that we are drawn into unpacking meaning, symbol, allegory and reality. The sparse props / set ask us to make our own connection to what follows. The scene plays out beautifully as the couple flock close to ‘the Light’ literally and figuratively. The further away the actors are moved / thrust from the source of all goodness, the more gnarled and bouffant the gesture and voice.

Wonderful to hear the Kiwi accent and phrases distorted by the topography of the space, almost like a cultural black hole in reverse. Under the Light all is good calm and serene even though some apocalypse has occurred. These flashes of Kiwi phrases and references to the neighbours next door and what life used to be like in the past are all added slowly, letting us in far enough to give it all meaning but leaving us with enough questions to see how it will evolve. 

The second section breaks through the fourth wall (already comically acknowledged in the first section: “Wasn’t there a door here somewhere?”). We are all in the middle of some weird Lynchian town meeting. Our two actors don and doff characters as though playing a tennis match. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if we revisited some characters but that didn’t matter, the patter between these multiple bystanders crafts the narrative like a jigsaw – and again, slowly, an understanding dawns about what’s going on.

But even at the end we don’t have the final picture. Something has gone down with all the metal in the world and disappearance – something to do with the literal disappearance of appearances. The joy of this only becomes prevalent in the last scenes. 

Next we have the most ‘realistic / naturalistic’ scene. The two actors are two actors re-enacting and rehearsing a short scene from Caryl Churchill’s Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen. Here the themes of memory and realising are fully and most accessibly worked. When Churchill wrote her play in the 1970s she was trying to realise the future and specifically the future in 2010 – where we [the time of tonight’s production] are now.

This leads us to look at the first section again of how we might encapsulate our vision / version of the future – things become clearer here. At first I wondered if we were being given the key to the production too obviously, but on thinking it through I think not. For our unnamed characters / actors also talk about what the future was for them when they were kids. 

And this is where we go now, in the last piece. The actors scurry behind the green cheesecloth / mesh / cyc / scrim and we have a shadow play of children at play. They discuss what might be real – fairies and dragons, as we sit snugly / smugly, recognising their shadows as Plato’s Cave. Their lilting voices are joyous and petulant, hurting and forgiving.

The theme of the night becomes clear and illuminated not through direct light but through shadow. What, of our thoughts, memories, projections of the future, are real when they are only the stuff of thoughts? Just like theatre, life is an illusion my friend.

Del McLeod and Jimmy Currin work like two devisors who have been working together for years. At times I felt the dialogue was on-the-spot improvisation, but the fluidity of thought / image and the progression of idea / argument was too well thought out. Both use their bodies and voices to keep the pace and interest, which never flagged for me.

McLeod, looking like a nun / angel / matron in a straight silken uniform, unleashes beautiful soprano to the Light; works her way through three differing and excellent versions of the Churchill; is all childlike innocence working her magic with fairies.

Currin, enjoyably arthritic and dis-eased; suddenly launches into fabulous lounge song; is gibberingly pathetic and staunchly menacing in the town meeting; cries like a child until something else takes his eyeline.

Both work extremely hard for the full 60mins but make it look not only easy but delightful fun. Combined with Richard Huber’s “directorial assistance” this is a substantial piece of intellectual (in the good way), interesting, well-conceived and well produced theatre. All of this is achieved with a minimum of props and set, and with five lights – all well used to aid imagination and atmosphere.

This perfect fodder not only for the Dunedin Fringe but for anyone looking for a thought-provoking good time. And The Theatre As Is employs a wonderful response technique I would dearly love to see in other, more ‘mainstream’ theatre: on the way out the audience is asked to pay what you think the production is worth. Take a great gulp of cash with you. Bloody well highly recommended – Theatre at its best.
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