There is nothing like a deadline and a few constraints to get the creative juices flowing. Over the past four weekends 19 short plays have been created and performed within 48 hours, each embracing the requirement to incorporate specified elements and use assigned props. Thirteen teams competed and two were selected from each heat – one by the judges and one by the audience – to accept a fresh challenge in the final. All the details and results of the three heats, and the final, may be found here.

The Two Day Plays 2015 Final brings the month of Sundays at Bats Theatre to its climax. Hosts Christine Brooks and Simon Smith tell us that on Friday night each team was given their two random props, and all six have to include at least two of the following: a character come back from the dead; a hair pull; 30 seconds of music generated live from the stage. These have been the provocations for the plays performed this night.  

Pat-a-cake Productions (Sabrina Martin, Claudia Murdoch, Sarah Tuck, Lewis McLeod, Donald Martin, Finn Johansson, Bop Murdoch) kick off with Weapons of Mass DistrACTION. The impressively cohesive ensemble allows their given props – a cardboard tube and a ping-pong bat – to represent an inventive range of things that lead them into an eclectic series of situational formations. Music is played on a keyboard, hair gets pulled and someone dies – but is ignored, creating social commentary about the preoccupations of modern life.

Starting at the top management level of a commercial television corporation, Hank of Thread (Sherilee Kahui, Dan Fraser, Jane Yonge, Jimmy Sutcliffe, Nell Williams, Michael Hebenton, Luca Neal, Rowan McShane) deliver a savage sendup of a popular TV show with The Snatchelor, set in tropical Hawai’inuiomata. Instead of roses the titular hero has leis: only two leis for the three remaining contestants. “The first lady I am going to lei tonight …” etc.

I confess I have seen enough of The Bachelor and associated media commentary to appreciate the satirical barbs. They incorporate a sushi roller and CD Player, as required, and feature a hair pull and a contestant returning from the dead, but it’s their critique of popular TV that makes the most lasting impression.

The Aztecs (Tom Clarke, Ollie Devlin, Ryan Knighton, Keely McCann, Sasha Tilly) venture into bizarre ‘Believe It or Not’ territory with Insert Title (or other) Here. Their props are dust masks (used in a rather arbitrary way) and what I think are claimed to be little yellow chickens (hard to make out from where I sit).

Their play is a series of monologues about what people have inserted into various orifices of their own bodies (readily researched on the internet, apparently) – hence their choice of the Mission Impossible theme to meet the live music requirement. Most impressive, however, is their extraction of a bloody ‘hair baby’ from someone’s stomach to fulfil the hair-pull challenge.

During interval Rough Talkers (Kris Gapes, Matt Halcombe, Joseph James, Ali Little, Jeremy Gapes, Harry Gibbons; tech: Steve Preston) set up a detailed set for Shanks for Watching. Their script involves two prisoners escaping from gaol to be with the granddad of one on ANZAC Day. En route they encounter a TV crew seeking vox pops about “psycho-sexual politics in New Zealand” (cue hair-pull).

Its potential – which includes an insight into how war can wound a man’s psyche – is compromised by some mediocre acting, at the ‘trying to remember lines’ level. They do the music thing and use their doll and parasol, as required, but the underdeveloped and under-rehearsed of this play casts doubts on the basic value of the Two Day concept.

Salvation arrives with the Brothers and Sisters (Bea Joblin, Zoe Joblin, Riley Brophy, Michael Boyes, Finn Johansson, Fran Olds; operator: David Lawrence). Inspired by the denim clothes someone had, Love Square finds Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton summoning Jolene, Reuben James, Lucille and Joshua to help them solve the age-old riddles of love. 

The plastic megaphone and giant ring are wittily incorporated, the hair-pull sees Dolly (“A feminist icon in her own way”) revealed as a drag queen and the music comes in not one but two splendidly rendered songs. Their assured acting skills and impeccable Country & Western accents, not to mention their square dancing, contribute to making Love Square a highlight.

In Hubris by Hubris, writer, director, designer and actor Uther Dean meets his self-set challenge of incorporating all the elements from the previous heats – including a character who only speaks one word (“sorry”); a character who can’t speak English (she speaks mathematics); a strangulation; a cuddle … – along with the hair-pull, character-back-from-the-dead and music (dubiously achieved), and using his assigned props: a shoe tree and a jar opener.

With a compelling stage presence, Dean launches into a convoluted and strangely mesmerising synopsis of the play he would have created if only he wasn’t afflicted with the hubris of thinking he could do it better than anyone else. If there was an award for Best Solo Team … Oh, and there is and he wins it (except it’s not listed in the official Awards List).

Overall Two Day Plays is an energising celebration of the collective creative spirit. Congratulations are due to producer Dean Hewison for inspiring and aligning the teams to make it all happen.

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