Owls Do Cry

Owls Do Cry is an iconic New Zealand novel by iconic New Zealand writer Janet Frame. It was her first iconic book. She also wrote the iconic An Angel At My Table, filmed by iconic New Zealand director Jane Campion. Have you got that? It’s iconic.

Making a theatrical production of such a work has its challenges. The book doesn’t follow a traditional route, and is informed by Frame’s struggles with mental health, being variously institutionalised throughout her young life. One of the characters, Daphne, reflects this, and another, Toby, is epileptic. Because of this, Red Leap Theatre have decided to do an “interpretation”, rather than just adapt the book into a play. There’s a lot of singing, dancing, acrobatics, lighting effects, and general mayhem, interspersed with moments of lucidity that the ordinary punter can understand.

At the beginning of the performance, the cast handed out copies of the book to all of the audience, and then encouraged us to use the books as percussion instruments – variously tapping on them, banging them, and riffling through the pages. This is supposed to help us familiarise ourselves with the work.

For those of us who haven’t read the book, this performance is a confusing display of disparate elements without a real story to tie it together. Those that have read the book apparently say the same thing. Yes, it’s interesting to go and see new things in theatre; they don’t always work though. This one was a definite “miss” for me.

Afterwards we went for dinner at Field & Green. They’ve changed up their menu a bit to the now-ubiquitous “shared plates” and “we’ll bring you the food when it’s ready” model, which can be a bit tiresome…especially if the kitchen loses your order. After receiving the ceviche fairly promptly, we had a 30 minute wait before the next dish arrived. They gave us a free scoop of their legendary ice cream as an apology, but overall, the concept Needs Work. The food is good, though, when it finally arrives.