Hole

Now we’re back in Level One (who knows for how long? There’s already a new cluster developing), we took advantage to go and see Hole at Circa Theatre.

But first, dinner. I tried to book at Field & Green, one of our go-to pre-theatre venues, but they purported to be full. Never mind, we’ll try somewhere new. How about Rock Yard? A Vietnamese restaurant on the site of the sadly now-defunct Muse. Looks good online, so I booked it. We were welcomed and seated in the gallery, and perused the menu. We decided on shared starters of dumplings and spring rolls, then went our separate ways on mains with chilli lemongrass chicken (me) and stir-fried tamarind noodles (Nicola). Both tasty, and substantial servings as well. I washed mine down with a Panhead Supercharger whilst Nicola had a pre-prandial cocktail – The Jasmine – consisting of gin, Cointreau, Campari, lemon and cranberry juice. All very tasty, and we may well be back on another occasion to try further dishes.

We were well in time for the show, so wandered up the street, past Field & Green (half-empty, I noted) to Circa Theatre.

The show, Hole, is the second in the Antarctic trilogy by playwright Lynda Chanwai-Earle. She came out before the show started to introduce the play, and also to invite us to the post-show discussion with some of the scientists on whose work the play is based. The play is also produced completely off-grid, with all the power consumed during the play generated by solar panels and a wind turbine that travel with them to wherever they are performed. The first play, Heat, was similarly powered. The third play doesn’t appear to exist or have been performed yet.

The lights went down, and the action started. I say “action” but it was more a disjointed introduction to the three main characters: Bonnie, a Greenpeace protester from Amsterdam; Stella, a scientist from Wellington; and Ioane, a Navy SEAL from American Samoa. The play is set in 1986 in Antarctica, and the hole in question is the recently-discovered one in the ozone layer.

Unfortunately, the play didn’t get more jointed. The characters are one-dimensional caricatures, and there’s no real plot, just a recitation of their backgrounds. Stevie Hancox-Monk, who plays Bonnie, also doubles up as Ioane’s commanding officer, and as a sailor. Again, to call these cardboard cut-outs is to imbue them with an additional dimension they did not possess. They seem inordinately pleased with their special effects, which are about the same level as one might expect in a school play…and not that good a school. The conflicts between Stella’s relationships with both the other characters went completely unexplored. There was no character development (how could there be? There was no characterisation!) and the ending was entirely predictable and trite.

We didn’t hang around for the post-show discussion. Save your money on this one.

We walked past Field & Green again on the way back to the car. Still half empty.