The Pink Hammer

The Pink Hammer is Circa Theatre’s marquee production for September. We decided to book early, taking advantage of our Friends’ rates.

First, obviously, dinner. We half-concocted a plan to try Wellington’s latest high-end adventure in taste, but looking at their location and times of opening, it just wasn’t going to be possible to get to Atlas either before or after the show without being terribly rushed. Which you don’t want…so we’ll try that another time.

We’d driven in with plenty of time to spare, as there’s sometimes a bit of traffic around Evans Bay and Oriental Parade. But not on this occasion, so we had half an hour before they evening service started at increasingly-favourite Field and Green. We walked around the corner to Courtenay Place, and had a cocktail at CGR Merchant. Then we popped back to Field and Green for a main course. Time slipped away from us there as well, so we made a firm resolution to come back after the show for ice cream. Fortunately, it’s just a hop and a skip from Circa. We collected our tickets and settled in.

Four women turn up in a shed for a course for women to learn how to do woodwork. A fairly straightforward premise, you’d think. But where’s the teacher? They’ve all paid in advance, and they’re rightly miffed. Not as miffed as Woody, however, who’s shed it is, and who knows nothing about it. Turns out his wife has organised this without his knowledge, and her whereabouts are currently unknown.

So, the women decide, Woody must teach them woodwork. He is, after all, a carpenter, and they’ve paid for tuition. Woody doesn’t really like the idea, but is coerced to go along with it. First up, he asks what project they’d all like to do. Louise wanted to learn general skills so that she could do some repairs around the house; Annabel wants to make an old-style bookcase for her Dickens collection; Siobhan wants to make a dog kennel for her vet boss’s dog, with whom she plans to have an affair (the boss, not the dog); and Helen wants to build her own coffin.

Wait, what? Why do you want to make a coffin? We dig deeper into the lives of all the characters, and what appears on the surface is revealed to be covering up a can of worms, which is duly opened. Each character has something to reveal, and as they do so, like soup, the plot thickens.  

There are some very funny moments. Woody is portrayed at first as typical man in his man-cave, but is soon revealed to be as in thrall as the women. It all unfolds at the end with the completion of Helen’s coffin, on the day of the Melbourne Cup. The play reaches its emotional climax with a shocking scene.

Suitably stunned, we crossed back to Field and Green for ice cream. Honey and fig, and peanut chocolate and salted caramel, since you ask. Nicola had marmalade and plum with white chocolate.