An ethereal love story and a lip-synching horror

Chelsie Preston Crayford in Carnival of Souls. Photo / Supplied

Of all the things theatre-makers devising an original production have to consider, create and action, you might think sourcing paper - albeit a large amount - to dress the set would be free from drama.

But when Red Leap Theatre started creating its new work, Paper Sky - A Love Story, for the Auckland Arts Festival, directors Kate Parker and Julie Nolan, and producer Lauren Hughes, faced a dilemma.

They needed lots of paper - and it had to be fire-retardant. Spraying fire-retardant over flammable props usually does the trick but it leaves the paper feeling gritty and looking lacklustre. That wouldn't do for a production in which the love and power of words are central themes.

Helped by costume designer Elizabeth Whiting, they contacted South Island artist Mark Lander and put in a bulk order for 400m of specially made fire-retardant paper which could be shaped to create a strikingly visual world for a love story of "fantastical proportions".

Since they began collaborating in the 1990s, Parker and Nolan have built reputations as theatre practitioners who use image and movement to create beautiful and ethereal work which explores the human condition in new and transformative ways.

Red Leap's Auckland Festival 2009 commission, The Arrival, won plaudits at the Sydney Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival and the NZ International Arts Festival. Last year it dominated the Chapman Tripp Wellington Theatre Awards, winning six awards including production of the year, while Nolan was named director of the year. Last year Parker was also named by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand as one of five recipients of its $25,000 New Generation Awards.

While The Arrival was based on a book by Australian author Shaun Tan, Parker and Nolan wanted to create a totally devised work in collaboration with actors and designers.

They started knowing they wanted a love story and Paper Sky has grown into a tale about Henry (Emmett Skilton), a loner who spends his days reading and writing poems but is too fearful to face the world beyond his cluttered study. Then he meets Lumina (Julia Croft), a mysterious woman who captures his heart and mind and might give Henry the courage to take risks.

Nolan and Parker agree courage is one of the central themes, something that recurs throughout their work.

As well as Skilton and Croft, it features Veronica Brady, Alison Bruce and Justin Haiu. The design team includes John Verryt, Jeremy Fern, Elizabeth Whiting and Andrew McMillan.

Across Auckland, a collaboration of a different nature is under way. Musician Leon Radojkovic, his eight-piece genre-defying band, Dr Colossus, and Foley artist Gareth Van Niekerk are working with director Oliver Driver and actors Chelsie Preston Crayford, Cameron Rhodes, Bronwyn Bradley and Charlie McDermott on a film - or, to be precise, one important aspect of it.

They've pushed the "mute" button on Herk Harvey's 1962 cult classic Carnival of Souls and are re-imagining the soundtrack. The idea is not to satirise the film but to use music and sound technology to hear - and therefore see - the film anew.

Carnival of Souls, about a woman who survives a near-fatal car accident and is then drawn to a mysterious and abandoned carnival, screens while the actors and musicians perform a new soundtrack to go with it.

Radojkovic decided it would be an interesting enterprise to re-score an older film. It has been done, in part, with orchestras performing while a silent film screens in the background but he thought that had become unoriginal so chose a "talkie".

Having never directed actors before, Radojkovic realised he would have to share control of his creation with someone better qualified in that department.

About the same time, friends were talking to Oliver Driver about the Carnival of Souls project. When Driver and Radojkovic met - a little warily initially, they say - the two discovered they shared similar thoughts about the multi-dimensional idea.

"As a director, that's what you're most often hired to do: to do the best job of bringing someone else's idea to life," says Driver.

The two cast together, seeing dozens of actors before signing up Preston Crayford, Rhodes, Bradley and McDermott to voice a multitude of characters.

They say the process, which involves lip-synching as accurately as possible, requires intense concentration and the ability to blend into the background.

"As an actor, there's a part of you that knows you are being looked at so it is kind of strange to look up and out at the audience and see no one's watching you," says Crayford.

Auckland Arts Festival

What: Paper Sky - A Love Story

Where and when: Glen Eden Playhouse Theatre, Glen Eden, March 4-6; Mercury Theatre, March 10-14

What: Live Live Cinema: Carnival of Souls

Where and when: Mercury Theatre, March 4-5; The Civic, March 20by Dionne Christian