Synchronised thesping in a revival of Bruce Mason’s classic.
Photo Michael Smith
More than half a century after it was first performed, Bruce Mason’s classic one-man remembrance of things past receives a production – courtesy of the Auckland Theatre Company – that’s polished to a warm glow.
The third iteration of a conceptualisation of the play that director Murray Lynch created in 1987 with a group of 10 actors, this The End of the Golden Weather is presented by nine performers who share narration duties as well as multiple roles that are swapped and changed throughout the evening.
As such, it resembles a high-spirited game of pass the parcel – one that’s executed with military precision, as the members of the ensemble wheel and kneel, create rock formations via human pyramids and switch characters mid-sentence.
To begin with, this synchronised thesping is a little distancing and distracting. In short order, however, an internal logic and rhythm is established that, far from detracting from the play’s text, actively privileges Mason’s descriptive language.
The strategy of having the dramatis personae played by more than one performer, for example, results in audience members being offered varied interpretations of the characters that encourage them to lean in and listen ever more closely to the words.
The use of tableau, mirroring and contrasting and other tricks and tropes of physical theatre likewise serves to foreground Mason’s work rather than obscure it.
A good part of Lynch’s task is logistical, and he directs what amounts to two hours of peak traffic with great deftness, as well as sensitivity.
It’s a pleasure to watch such a large group of young actors working together so seamlessly. That said, the cast’s collective youth does inevitably drain the piece of some of the bittersweet nostalgia inherent in a middle-aged man looking back on his boyhood; there’s a residual sense of kids playing dress-up, albeit in a most accomplished manner.
The technical credits, meanwhile, all sparkle: Brian King’s raked stage of warm, textured wood – capped by a stretched, painted canvas that’s redolent of sea, sky and pohutukawa trees – creates a flexible performance space that’s also evocative of a specific place, while his lovingly detailed period costumes effortlessly establish the era; Nathan McKendry’s lighting design is finely judged; and Gareth Farr’s rippling, chiming score unobtrusively provides proceedings with an elegiac grace note.
THE END OF THE GOLDEN WEATHER, by Bruce Mason, directed by Murray Lynch, Auckland Theatre Company, Maidment Theatre, Auckland, until September 24.