THE MOA SHOW Jamie McCaskill
BATS Theatre, The Propeller Stage, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
26/04/2016 - 30/04/2016
NZ International Comedy Festival 2016
Production Details
When you wake up with a headache and your bed is made of leaves – it’s time to cut back on the drink. When a guitar-playing hermit offers you drugs – it might be time to reassess your life.
When you fail your job interview with a racist spotted Kiwi – it’s time to seek help from the Moa.
This surreal sketch features McCaskill’s oddball small-town characters who find themselves in need of insight by the enlightened Moa.
Expect a hilarious ascent into other-worldly and absurd scenarios. And by the end of it, you’ll find yourself in fits of laughter at new heights.
“Jamie presents character comedy at its best” – Theatreview
Facebook – /TikapaProductions
BATS Propeller Stage
26-30 April 2016
6.30pm
Part of the 2016 NZ International Comedy Festival powered by Flick Electric Co. running from 22 April – 15 May. To get The Latest on all the comedy shows on offer, info about the Fest, access to competitions and special deals, head to www.comedyfestival.co.nz.
Limited tickets available at the Cheap Wednesday price of $16 for Wednesday 27th April only!
Theatre , Solo , Comedy ,
More than the sum of its hugely entertaining parts
Review by John Smythe 27th Apr 2016
This batch of benighted blokes and birds (the feathered kind) has been fermenting back in Jamie McCaskill’s fertile brain since he first gave them a run at last year’s Pūtahi Festival, where it enjoyed the longer title, A Tale of 3 Lonely Men and their Quest for an Audience with the Elusive Moa.
Inspired by the couple of years he and his family spent in Thames (a period which also produced Not In Our Neighbourhood), McCaskill has cleverly crafted what initially feels like a casual chat about ‘crazy characters I have met’ into a feat of performance. Despite the broad acting style that reveals an increasingly surreal story, he surreptitiously draws us deeper into an understanding of humanity.
We’re invited into The Junction Hotel – a rural pub like any other – to meet Brian with a mullet, a dodgy hip and an addiction to beer; Henry the dart-player who claims to be good at all sorts of things and has a fund of ever more bizarre “That reminds me of when I was in …” tales; and the suave drifter Carmichael, whose faith in the Moa becomes the main driver of the story.
McCaskill manifests them brilliantly in fully-committed commedia style, using his own face, physicality and vocal skills to characterise them, and the Thrush, spotted Kiwi and – yes – the Moa they encounter on their Carmichael-led quest to connect with their inner Moa. It is when they venture into the bush that nefarious substances, taken orally and anally, heighten their experiences – and ours – theatrically enhanced by Jennifer Lal’s colourful lighting design.
There is more than a little fetishism fomenting in Carmichael’s foetid brain. And who knew a spotted Kiwi could be racist about Māori? But it’s what is really important to these men in their real lives that emerges as stuff to be confronted and resolved. That what makes The Moa Show more than the sum of its hugely entertaining parts.
With his co-deviser and director Craig Geenty, Jamie McCaskill has set the bar very high for Comedy Festival fare. You don’t want to miss this one.
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