This year’s NZ Improv Festival at BATS Theatre features twenty shows in five days; twenty entirely different formats! Participants hail from Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin, Melbourne and Sydney. BATS is abuzz with expectant punters.

The show that launches the festival is Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT)’s The Royal Equinox Adventure Cruise. Invented by Annika Naschitzki, it is “born from a love of Wes Anderson films” – e.g. The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel – and takes its inspiration from “themes like difficult families, the loss of innocence, and unlikely friendships; you’ll find symmetry, simplicity, and strangely sympathetic weirdos”.

I arrive later than the requested 15 minutes before, to pick up my tickets, so completely miss the cruising cast members asking punters what they would take on a cruise. Frim my seat, I do notice a scribbled list of words on a white board leaning against the side wall (the only word I can discern at that angle and distance is “Dildo”) but as the show gets under way, no-one mentions this is the ‘ask for’ component let alone displays the list.   

There is a blackboard on an easel centre stage which never gets used as such and three Turkish rugs in the floor hint at exotica. Musician Matthew Hutton establishes a mood of romantic, adventurous anticipation on his keyboard. Annika Naschitzki introduces her show in German and Jason Geary, who will narrate/direct as required, translates.

The cast of six line up behind the blackboard. One stands in front of it and the others name the character and endow him/her with a characteristic or quality: that’s five each, a total of 30, which is quite a lot for us to take in. Of course we take it on trust that these are spontaneous, never-been-mentioned-before endowments (because why wouldn’t they be?) although we must also assume, given their costumes, that each character name and role, as crew member or passenger, has been pre-determined.  

Thus we have pipe-puffing Colonel Cobb (Steven Youngblood), who is in fact the ship’s Captain; Antonio de Angelo (Matt Powell), a trainee officer; Julius (Lyndon Hood), the cleaner with no surname; Saffron Monsoon (Kate Shields), a racehorse owner and ex-wife of Col Cobb; Felicity Banks (Guanny Liu-Prosee), who has lots of books, no mother and loves facts; Marjorie Banks (Mary Little), who has an identical twin sister, knows how to deal from the bottom of the pack, and has a ceramic right hand.

I have noted just a few of the endowments, many of which are ignored. Of the five each character is given, they pick up just one or two – while also endeavouring to honour the fundamental themes and qualities of the Wes Anderson style. It’s a big ask to incorporate everything, not least for the audience whose enjoyment is directly connected to seeing the challenges met. There are too many elements to keep track of and because the ‘ask fors’ on the white board are not displayed, we cannot ‘tick them off’ as they become incorporated.

The evolving play, then, becomes the ‘thing’ rather than the means to the end. And in this case it is rather lacklustre – not least because the Captain is compulsively morose and keeps repeating, in scene after scene, that this is “Equi’s last voyage”. A couple of time other actors attempt to inject some energy into proceedings but gain little traction.

Also whatever is happening by way of a scientific study being conducted by the Banks’ sisters is initially compromised by Little’s very soft voice (surely she can hear that everyone else is pitching to the theatre while she is not) then gets lost in the team’s attempts to navigate the shoals of disparate components and align to a central plot of sorts.  

At a press conference before departure it is announced that this last voyage is to be to the Bermuda Triangle and it is this that which finally brings focus and drama to proceedings, when they cross the line and things go awry. The fact that the port, starboard, bow and stern are depicted in totally illogical relationships with each other becomes a source of shared amusement for both cast and audience.  

Ghost whales, the demise of Julius and his ghostly apparition at the end add a supernatural element to the tale. The Captain and Antonio go underwater to save the ship – although somehow it’s suddenly stated that Marjorie’s knowledge of science has saved the day. Really? Maybe I missed something …  

The device of dispensing pieces of the shattered ship to each character is, in principle, a good way of summing up and achieving a conclusion but overall the concept has proved way too overburdened and complicated in this its first outing. Doubtless refinements will occur – and of course this festival is an ideal place to trial new formats. 

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