Four improvisors take the stage at BATS Dome and waste no time in asking for a lead to their performance from a nearly full house of seemingly seasoned enthusiasts.

“How might two friends meet and get to know each other?” the players want to know. “Cricket” is the first offer and in the tradition of improv it is taken up with alacrity.

There are two men and two women in the cast, and thus more than one possibility to keep us guessing who is going to end up with whom. Lisa, younger sister, wants to be part of the action, but which part? Cricketing terms meet sexual innuendo in an exchange with older sister Celia who’s been twelfth man for an interminable time and is resigned to her role as after match provider of drinks and snacks. The dialogue thus sparked gives rise to a lengthy but fascinating bit of character development.

Ensuing exchanges build on the confessions and confidences made between and among the four. “I don’t meet someone and take them straight to the clubroom,” becomes a weighted accusation, as does any reference to the trophy room. LBW becomes LBD (Leg Before Death) in an explanation of why cricket pads are needed. There’s even a deeper theme hinted at in a discussion about just how Connor became captain and has remained so. “He’s in our heads,” laments Celia – but it’s not said entirely regretfully.

Special mention should be made of the sympathetic keyboard accompaniment and the alacrity of the lights person.

Near the end of the performance we’re still guessing who’ll end up with whom. Ah, but I haven’t mentioned Brian …

Unlike the game on which this performance is based, the denouement – touching, beautifully staged, and satisfying – has all players winning.

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As a playwright, watching Locomotive’s One Act/Play fills me with terror because – wait, what? – I am not needed! Here is a competent, compelling story unfolding before my eyes without a script. There are rounded and relatable characters. There are character arcs and an overall narrative. There is pathos and comedy. It is theatrical. 

The night has begun with a suggestion from the audience (to set the story in “a weird mani-pedi place”) and we’re away: Locomotive (Clare Kerrigan, Jen O’Sullivan, Christine Brooks and Matt Powell) rapidly transport us to a cramped, slightly foot-odoury-smelling, struggling manicure business populated by an old hand, a new girl, a stressed business owner and her mysteriously manipulative husband. There is deceit, thwarted love, self-realisation and friendship. It all feels rich and authentic, and we’re only ten minutes in so far.

Yup, I’m obsolete. All we need to do to generate new stories is have a team like this one build them before our eyes and learn from the magic of what they do. Mind you, we are watching some of the most experienced and well-trained improvisers in the country.

Kerrigan has trained with (swoon – the holy grail of improv studies) Loose Moose in Canada, the company that Keith Johnstone (the grandfather of improv) started when he relocated from England. She was also responsible for bringing Johnstone to Aotearoa in 2004, something that we are unlikely to see again, so we’re lucky to have companies like Locomotive now sharing what they’ve learned from improv greats elsewhere.

O’Sullivan, like Clare, has worked with many different Aotearoa improv companies, trained (and given training) extensively overseas, including with Deb Frances-White (the fabulous ‘guilty feminist’ comedian and podcaster who toured Aotearoa earlier this year) at The Spontaneity Shop in London. O’Sullivan has also started many important improv ventures in Aotearoa.

Brooks has toured and taught overseas too, as well as creating multiple improv shows here, including The Long Weekend, The Museum of Broken Relationships, The Restaurant, Taking off the Bird Suit and many more. She’s a founding member of the New Zealand Improvisation Trust.

Powell spent twelve years with The Court Jesters performing in Scared Scriptless (yep, I’m definitely getting a ‘scripts are obsolete’ vibe here), and has performed and taught with PlayShop, WIT, Soap Factory, Basejump, Scruffy Bunny and more.

So while they make it look effortless, there’s a heck of a lot of experience and legendary improv genealogy behind the scenes here. The production is also ably supported by a high calibre crew in Liam Kelly (Winner Most Promising Emerging Artist, NZ Fringe Awards 2017) who is himself a theatre maker and an experienced supplier of live music to improv shows – here he accompanies on keyboard and percussion – and experienced lighting designer and operator, Darryn Woods.

Kerrigan says the aim of One Act/Play is to show audiences that improv is more than just playing short, competitive games. Improv can create coherent and entertaining narratives in longer form, and Locomotive is keen to draw out that more theatrical side of things, showcasing depth in acting skills, character building and storytelling.  “We want people to know improv is not just [popular television show] Whose Line is it Anyway?. We want the experience to be like going to see a one-act play, only fresh each night.”

Overseas, Kerrigan and other members of the company have studied and taught the Harold structure, an improv format originally from the USA, in which characters and themes are introduced and then developed across a series of interconnected scenes. That background is clear in One Act/Play: set-ups and motifs are strong, and they are returned to, fleshed out, then finally resolved across multiple short, linked scenes within a roughly 45-minute playing time. I asked Kerrigan how much they prepare in advance: the answer is nothing. They warm up, they practice a couple of random starts, but nothing is built until they get that first suggestion from the audience. You are seeing genuine live invention in action, and the idea of any pre-scripting really is obsolete.

In a way, this review is obsolete too, because the show that happened on July 25 at BATS in One Act/Play will never, ever happen again – and that also a big part of its kick and its specialness. If you were there, you were in an exclusive club. But if you couldn’t be there, I hope in reading this you might get a sense of the possibilities for Locomotive’s next One Act/Play when it is staged on August 29, and go along to discover for yourself something singular that has never been seen before and will never be seen again.

Here’s roughly how One Act/Play unfolded on July 25, 2020. From the moment the audience member suggests ‘mani-pedi’ place, Kerrigan and Brooks are instantly Sylvie and Gillian. Sylvie is the seasoned, skilful manicurist placating an elderly customer with effortless small talk platitudes, while Gillian doesn’t even know that she needs to plug in the ultra violet light machine to a power socket.

Sylvie smoothly shows her what to do, and we can see that there’s some sort of invested relationship there: Sylvie doesn’t want Gillian to get into trouble with the customers or the boss for her incompetence. What’s particularly beautiful here is the gentle pace as we watch characters and the relationship built before our eyes. There’s no sense of needing to rush: customers are allowed to relax into the soothing pace of their mani-pedi and so are we, into the story. This is very different from the usual manic, often instantly shouty pace of a sporting-event-style improv competition (even though those are awesome and energetic in their own way).

We can feel the drama ramping up, though, as there is clearly trouble brewing already.  Gillian is lying about her level of mani-pedi experience and Sylvie is knowingly covering for her: that can’t end well. My imagination is already jumping ahead to supply images of mangled toes and over-cooked fingers in the UV machine. That’s not where the story goes, it goes somewhere far more interesting, but that’s the hallmark of a good story – when it draws the audience in to start imagining ‘What next, what next?’ themselves.

We have another establishing scene: O’Sullivan is Amber, the likeable and well-meaning but somewhat naïve owner of ‘Mani-Pedi Place’ who just wants the business to succeed but can’t seem to balance the books. Powell is Jack, her husband, who seems over-eager to dismiss her concerns about the financials and perhaps not as helpful with the accounting side of the business as he could be.

This is classic narrative-building at work: something is at stake, for a character whom we already like and relate to. Jack seems glibly reassuring and drops clues that Amber should not worry about inspecting the books too closely.  Amber finally makes it abundantly clear: the business is losing money, a lot of money, and she doesn’t know what to do about it. Jack still seems strangely unconcerned.  A conflict theme is established: there are ‘no crimes’ in the books (at least not that Amber can see), but there is financial loss. Jack only cares to emphasise that there are ‘no crimes’, but Amber is far more worried that there is no money!

Amber talks to Gillian to welcome her on board as a new employee. As they chat, Kerrigan has Sylvie throw in an off-stage disruption to shake things up, making distinctly sexual noises so loudly that Amber and Gillian can barely hear themselves speak. The noises seem to be coming from the store cupboard and we wonder whether Jack is in the store cupboard with Sylvie (uh-oh, betrayal!) but no, Sylvie is in there by herself.

Then comes one of several highlights of the piece: Sylvie’s rallying, sex-positive, self-actualisation soliloquy, in which she calls passionately for her newfound ability to take time for herself and be grounded in self-love and connect with the true core of her identity to be respected. Kelly’s dramatic music interweaves seamlessly, swelling the oration into a grand soliloquy and Woods’ mood lighting follows and amplifies the theme.  

It’s a powerful moment but Amber, embarrassed and awkward, is unable to share in Slyvie’s celebratory mood at her release from restrictions and decides that they need a new rule: no masturbating in the workplace.  A lot of very, very funny puns about Sylvie ‘coming and going’ as she pleases ensue, and the audience is unable to stop laughing: it really is very funny. Even the cast are cracking up, and this is also part of the fun – watching the wheels almost-but-not-quite come off the performers’ intentions as one fantastic gag almost derails them all.

The story gets back on track with the revelation that Gillian is actually from Inland Revenue, her name is Sarah, and Mani-Pedi Place is on a ‘special list’ of businesses being undercover-investigated for risk of fraud. This is all due to, it transpires, Jack’s history of past white-collar crimes.

The plot twist leads into other standout highlight of the show: the long-anticipated betrayal showdown between Amber and Jack. We knew it was coming but not in what form, and here it is: Jack has concealed his criminal background from Amber, put everything in her name so that the collapse of the business will reflect on her but not him, and he may or may not be stealing from the business as well. 

Here is where Locomotive’s aim to have improv show high calibre character acting and relationship interactions that reveal true emotion, is best showcased. The scene where Amber confronts Jack and ends by sadly removing her wedding ring could easily rank with any quality, end-of-love scene slaved over by a writer or team of writers for a mainstage show. Amber’s loss of trust feels real.

The actors make it look easy. Perhaps this is precisely because it is unrehearsed and new, and that, after all, is how life plays out. Amber really is hearing this for the first time and reacting to it for the first time: as long as O’Sullivan stays with her character, which she does flawlessly, she can go with the flow and the results will feel authentic to the audience. The acting guidebooks point out that the best acting is not really acting but reacting, and in an improvised story that reaction doesn’t have to be forced through a litany of repeat rehearsals: the character’s response of surprise and dashed expectations is true. It makes for very moving theatre.

Switching back to the other characters, we find out more connections: Gillian went to uni with Sylvie and stopped her marrying Jack. Yes, Sylvie knew Jack before, and it’s all too much for Amber who downs four glasses of wine and declares that everything is shit.  It’s up to Sarah to come to the rescue with a new business idea, which is that, using inside information from IRD, the three women should travel the country intervening in situations where women business owners are being taken for a ride by scheming partners. Kelly, on the keyboard, dives in with appropriate Charlie’s Angels-style vigilante music as the women hatch their plan to rescue other women from bad relationships, and everything ends on an upbeat note.

More people should come and watch One Act/Play. The audience is a smallish but enthusiastic group of devotees, and it deserves a broader following. When Jen asks for a ‘hands up’ at the beginning, most people in the audience have seen One Act/Play before, and all but two have seen improv before (and I am pretty sure those two are improvising their answer, as they seem to know exactly what’s going on).  This is an authentic theatrical experience that will reward anyone who’s sick of the glib predictability of pre-packaged television, wants to disconnect from the barrage of news and social media and watch real human beings at work demonstrating excellence in a difficult craft, or who wants to learn more about storytelling.

That is one of the biggest thrills of long form improv: watching the story constructed. There’s a performance theorist Elin Diamond who writes that theatre absorbs us because we are watching, live in the moment, not just the character, also the actor, and the actor-being-the-character – we are triply engaged. In improv the stakes and rewards are even higher: we are watching not just the actor, character and actor-in-character but also the actor figuring out the story live in the moment. It feels as though we can almost hear their brains whirring and clicking as they make decisions about how the characters feel towards each other, what happens next, and what the consequences of each move might be. Then another character will throw a spanner, and their brains whirr and clunk as they recalculate all over again. It’s absolutely fascinating to watch, and the Locomotive crew are masters at it. 

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