Find out what the cast and crew think of Pasefika

This week on drama on the waterfront, meet the cast and hear from the designers of Pasefika, Circa's show for the New Zealand Festival. 

From the Cast...

George Henare

Baudelaire / Te Rangi

“Insane! I love it!” My immediate reaction on reading this wonderful, articulate romp through French history. Stuart has given us all the theatrical elements, the intrigue, the dissembling, the emotional turmoil, the pleasure and the drama that only ‘ze’ French could experience in one day, let alone in 2 hours. 
Loving working with the Circa team again. Can’t wait to share this craziness with the audiences."

Jason Whyte

Charles Meryon

“It is an honour to be sharing the stage with some of NZs finest actors, and a wonderful challenge to get inside the mind of Charles Meryon.” 

Emma Kinane

Jeanne Duval / Madame Bourgeois

“Pasefika is an inspiring production to be involved in; the rehearsal room is buzzing. An exciting new script, a creative design team that's twice the usual size, and the added zest of being part of the Festival. It's like Theatre Christmas in February.”

Aroha White

Louise Niveau / Ruiha

“I feel as is Stuart was living in Paris with Meryon and Baudelaire while he was writing Pasefika.  His words are cheeky, challenging, lusty and a pleasure to commit to memory.”

From the Designers…

 Andrew Foster 

Set Design

There's no escaping Pasefika as a complex design proposition. A weaving of diverse cultures, multiple locations, and I think most intriguingly; of memories. Stuart Hoar pronounces his surrealism by anachronistically allowing the play to slip in and out of its historical period. Contemporary urban references float through Paris in the late 1800's, and as in the central character's art works, the boundaries of culture, geography and physics become blurred in recall. During the design process I've been fascinated by the way in which the mind reconstitutes images from memory, and the distortion of facts by feelings. Charles Meryon's etchings reflect a hyper-real amalgam of both his experience and his emotional responses, with the effect of endorsing perception over reality. I suppose that this has become my key premise in designing Pasefika. An attempt, if you will, to chronicle a landscape of the mind.

In collaborating with 3 other very talented designers (in the areas of AV, sound and light) I've also been conscious of trying to maintain a sense of space for the audience to allow room for the viewers imagination to engage with the work.

Marcus McShane

Lighting Design

Pasefika is a play that thinks a lot about conventionality, both in art and in history, and explores the life of someone who breaks with it. It seems only right to follow this lead, and break with a lot of lighting conventions as well. 

We're working with a layering of angle and texture along (and even through) the set, and are repurposing an architectural light-work that bridges traditional light and projection in order to incorporate it as well.

Johann Nortje

Video Design

The AV (video projection) in this show is used as a very important part of creating each scene as well as aiding in the story telling. As the design of the show is very abstract compared to standard realism, the video projection thrives on this freedom to create and aid in the turmoil and visions of the characters.

Tane Upjohn-Beatson 

Sound Design

When Captain Cook first heard traditional maori music he was awed and unnerved by its passion but unfamiliarity and out of tune-ness to the western ear. Meryon must have had similar experiences of the natural soundscape and music of New Zealand, that haunted him for decades to come.

Instead of focussing on realism, the sound design and music of Pasefika focuses on creating for the audience the same sense of infatuating otherness, and a dreamlike juxtaposition 19th century France, New Zealand, and New Zealand today. 


Pasefika is on at Circa Theatre from 22 Feb – 16 March. For Festival dates, please book through Ticketek (details below). For the post-Festival season, please book at Circa (details below).

BOOKINGS: for performances 22 Feb-16 Mar (New Zealand Festival), call TICKETEK on 0800 842 538 (www.festival.co.nz or www.ticketek.co.nz)

BOOKINGS: for performances 21 Feb and 18-29 March, call Circa Theatre on 801-7992 (www.circa.co.nz)

Show Times: Tue and Wed 6.30pm, Thu-Sat 8.00pm, Sun 4.00pm. 

About grandparenting ... You Can Always Hand Them Back

Director Jane Waddell:

I am not a grandmother myself but just after I started work on You Can Always Hand Them Back I received news that my friends and colleagues Carolyn and Ray Henwood had become grandparents. Carolyn and Ray were instrumental in the founding of Circa Theatre over 35 years ago.  Their son Dai is now well-known as a highly successful comedy performer. It has been Iovely to welcome Charlie Henwood into the Circa family and to be simultaneously working on this delightful entertainment all about grand parenting by Roger Hall and Peter Skellern.

Actress Lynda Milligan:

When Roger asked me to be in You Can Always Hand Them Back I was an experienced grandmother. When I read the script I realised how much my experience mirrored what he had written.  I have 2 grand children living in London and I live, in between my work commitments, with my 2 New Zealand grandchildren in Christchurch. There are other similarities too but perhaps I had better not mention them!

Actor George Henare:

I don’t have grandchildren but I do have lots of great-nieces and nephews, which is sort of the same, especially when it comes to baby sitting. The scenario runs something like this: “I’ll just be half an hour” says the mother.  Six hours later she returns and notices her gorgeous off-spring is sleeping and says it would be a pity to wake them and perhaps it would be good idea to leave them for an overnight stay. To which I immediately reply that it would NOT be a good idea!!!! Always happy to have them but always happy to hand them back.

QUOTES:

My grandkids believe I'm the oldest thing in the world. And after two or three hours with them, I believe it, too. ~Gene Perret

Grandmothers are just ‘antique’ little girls. ~Author Unknown

 A grandmother is a babysitter who watches the kids instead of the television. ~ Author Unknown

Never have children, only grandchildren. ~Gore Vidal

Becoming a grandmother is wonderful. One moment you’re just a mother. The next you are all-wise and prehistoric. ~Pam Brown

Grandchildren don’t stay young forever, which is good because Grandfathers have only so many horsy rides in them. ~Gene Perret

When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window. ~ Ogden Nash

Grandma always made you feel she had been waiting to see just You all day and now the day was complete. ~ Marcy DeMaree

If I had known how wonderful it would be to have grandchildren,
I’d have had them first. ~Lois Wyse

If becoming a grandmother was only a matter of choice, I should
advise every one of you straight away to become one. There is
no fun for old people like it! ~Hannah Whithall Smith

Grandchildren are God’s way of compensating us for growing
Old. ~Mary H. Waldrip  

 An hour with your grandchildren can make you feel young again. Anything longer than that, and you start to age quickly. ~Gene Perret 

I don't intentionally spoil my grandkids.  It's just that correcting them often takes more energy than I have left.  ~Gene Perret

The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby's grandparents.  You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida.  ~Dave Barry

Few things are more delightful than grandchildren fighting over your lap.  ~Doug Larson

To a small child, the perfect granddad is unafraid of big dogs and fierce storms but absolutely terrified of the word "boo."  ~Robert Brault, 

Posterity is the patriotic name for grandchildren.  ~Art Linkletter

A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do.  ~Lois Wyse

I wish I had the energy that my grandchildren have - if only for self-defence.  ~Gene Perret

You Can Always Hand Them Back is on now in Circa One until 30 March. To book, contact the Circa Box Office on 801-7992 or visit www.circa.co.nz.