| HORSEPLAY - James K. Baxter meets Ronald Hugh Morrieson |
| Written by Sian Rafferty |
| Monday, 10 May 2010 22:28 |
 A playwright’s most useful tool is not a pen, or a typewriter or a keyboard, but almost certainly the power to embellish and create history however they want, using artistic license. If you are an average writer, you can use this to pull your story together, emphasis history’s more exciting moments, and drown out the boring. However, if you are a great writer, you can create whole stories, completely centred upon what never happened - and indeed - what could have been. This is exactly what Ken Duncan does in ‘HORSEPLAY'. Take two of New Zealand’s wild-child writers - who almost certainly never met - and shove them into the little backwater town of Hawera, for one long night which only gets darker and more unreal, as it carries on. James K. Baxter (Tim Balme) with his mystical poetic ramblings and stringy beard, looks like he has jumped straight from Jerusalem and right onto the Maidment stage... and could there be a better partner in crime, than the Kiwi-to-the-core novelist Ronald Hugh Morrieson (John Leigh). Together they battle words and wit, as jealousy and unachieved dreams threaten to bubble to the surface, and both men struggle with old demons, close to the end of their respective lives. Throw in Morrieson’s batty Aunt (Elizabeth McRae with impeccable comic timing) and his unsatisfied girlfriend (Toni Potter), and you have all the ingredients for what can only be described as a great night of shambles.  Everything about this play has that typical NZ feel to it - and quite frankly - I have never seen another set with such attention to detail. This could be anyone’s Grandmother’s house - dollies on the sofa, an old tinny kettle. I wouldn’t be surprised if set designer Tracey Collins had managed to save Morrieson’s house when it was replaced with a KFC in the nineties, and pulled off transporting the little house all the way up to Auckland. Combined with the genius off-stage sound and lighting, you almost feel like you have left Auckland University and are sitting smack bang, in the middle of nowhere. It’s a great night watching these two legends fight with words and it turns into an evening any English professor would give their back-teeth to witness. A word to the wise though, if you have never attended a New Zealand literature 101 paper, or haven’t ever come across either man’s respective works, maybe take a glance at Wikipedia before you go in. 'Horseplay' runs until May 29th at the Maidment Theatre. Click HERE for more information on show-times and bookings.
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