With Alma and the Mind Galaxy, writer Isabel Pecora and her team of fellow-devisers have set themselves an interesting artistic puzzle: how to bring the workings of the mind to life on stage? Most people find the workings of their own consciousness fairly interesting, but watching someone else think, or dream, isn’t much a spectator sport, or not usually … I guess there are always exceptions.  

Alma solves this puzzle by representing the central character’s inner life in the form of (mild spoilers ahead) an adventure quest of sorts. The quester is Alma herself (Ngarongonui Mareikura). Alma has been having migraines that may be linked to various stresses in her life, to the point where she is getting an EEG scan.

The setting for her quest is the dream she has while she is being scanned. For company, she has a Guide (Rachel Tuki) and an observer/commentator, The Shadow (Max Steel). Both of these are effectively part of Alma’s consciousness, the dramatic sleight of hand here being to divide Alma’s ‘self’ into different parts and have them interact. To make matters more complicated, and interesting, Alma encounters her boss, her sister, and her boyfriend, not to mention the personification of other corners of her mind.

In the course of the play, Alma revisits key scenes from her life, faces up to challenges and learns lessons about what’s gone wrong, or right, and how she could improve her game.

As a dramatic vehicle, the quest format seems to have lots of flexibility and potential. On the whole, the play sticks with the safer choices, in terms of the issues Alma has to deal with and the solutions she and her slightly unreliable companions come up with. Fair enough, but I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if Alma strayed into even riskier territory.

At the moment-by-moment level, the sensitively written script and strong cast keep the dialogue between the characters lively and credible. The production makes imaginative use of the BATS space, with characters popping up here and there all over the stage. Lighting, visual effects including screens, and audio play an important part in delivering the story. A lot of creative effort has obviously gone into developing these elements and integrating them with each other and the live action (Composer and Sound Designer: Kieran Redmond; Production Designer: Henry Brosnahan; Lighting Designer: Tom Smith).

I’ve already mentioned the strong cast – Mareikura and Tuki deliver solid, sympathetic performances in their roles. Steel gets more varied and edgier parts, and revels in them – her snide, rather sinister Shadow in particular really helps to bring the play alive.

Director Dryw McArthur has done well to bring all these elements together.

On this opening night, there are a few dropped stitches, including lines being drowned out by the recorded sound (this mostly seem to happen to Mareikura). No doubt these will all be sorted in time for later shows.

A shout out to Six Degrees and BATS for giving us this sturdy platform for featuring the work of Wellington’s theatre practitioners-in-training. With two Six Degrees Festivals in 2024, not to mention the amazing Iphigeneias presented by the Victoria Ancient Theatre Society, Vic has really outdone itself this year in terms of delivering great local theatre.   

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