| RUBEN GUTHRIE |
| Written by Sian Rafferty |
| Tuesday, 29 September 2009 15:28 |
 Like Icarus, Ruben Guthrie tried to fly. Icarus flew with wings made of feathers and wax; Ruben flew with vodka and coke. Like Icarus, Ruben fell... and his high-rolling life of excess, ground to a stop with one fell swoop. The eternal fall of humankind, one moral of ‘RUBEN GUTHRIE', is one which has echoed throughout the hallowed halls of history. Remember Eve? ‘Don’t touch the apple’. Hell, Macbeth was only so bad because he started out so good. There is nothing as seductive as the good guy gone bad. Yet, does this leave anything for the bad guy gone good? After his fated fall from the high-life, Ruben (Oliver Driver) vowed to stop. No longer would he leave the Viaduct clubs at four, smelling faintly of vomit and cologne. He would treat his beautiful (and younger) model girlfriend with respect, and they would live happily ever after in his waterfront apartment with harbour views. Unfortunately for Ruben, going sober isn’t that easy. This is a story which fits perfectly into the Auckland scene, and Driver is perfect as the smarmy, arrogant yet oddly self-pitying Guthrie. You need a man who is pretty up there in the cool-stakes of New Zealand, to pull off an advertising-exec climbing his way back from total destruction. To be honest, the family-friendly face which we wake up to every morning, is someone we almost could see falling from a height. We love to imagine him with a raging drug addiction, ego-maniacally tossing a glass of sparkling water at a lowly production assistant. The truth is probably far from the matter; he is, I am sure, a nice guy with a clean record. Yet that is beside the point. The fact is, we could see him as Ruben. The main problem for Ruben is that he has totally centred his life around constant partying and boozing. What’s responsible for his award winning commercial idea? Booze. How does he maintain that winning Sunday-afternoon-barbecue-relationship with his dad? Booze. In a culture so committed to having a good time, how does one survive when everyone treats you as crazy for not having a drink? Of course, Ruben is severely trialled when his best mate Damian (Dean O’Gorman) comes back from the States. Damian, with his impish smile and puppy-dog eyes, is the little devil sitting on Guthrie’s shoulder saying - ‘come on...have a drink!’ The best feature of the play would have to be the one-on-one time the audience gets with Driver. Sitting in a chair in the middle of the stage, he regularly appeals to the audience in his AA meetings. The spotlight's on him, and he sure sweats it out; rationalising and explaining away his woes. The other thing which really amazed me about Driver, was the sheer length of every one of his limbs. Seeing a man, whose arms and legs basically seem to be in different scenes to each other, squeeze himself nervously into a chair in the AA meetings sure makes for some great acting. Sigh, another superiorly intellectual and excellently executed play from the Silo Theatre Company. Come on guys, give us something to play with here. Yet in all seriousness, Ruben Guthrie is a play to learn lessons from; I sure didn’t touch any of the opening night champers after the play. Yes this is a deep and uncomfortably realistic look into the drinking culture of New Zealand, and definitely one in which you will emerge from happy and satisfied, albeit with a deeply furrowed and concerned brow. ‘RUBEN GUTHRIE’ plays at the Herald Theatre until October 17th. |
