AK09 preview The Chairs at the Maidment Theatre

Cristina Ionda and Michael Lawrence struggle to find the meaning of existence. Photo / John McDermott

Romanian playwright Eugene Ionesco's work may ask the big questions about life - why are we here, what's it all about and does it matter - but right now there's just one thought occupying actor Michael Lawrence. Why, oh why, did he and fellow actors Cristina Ionda and Denise Snoad think it was a good idea to perform Ionesco's Absurdist masterpiece The Chairs in English and in the original French at the Auckland Festival?

It may be the same script and the same characters but it is, says Lawrence, like working on two challenging pieces of theatre at the same time. Shows in English bookend the middle of the season, which is in French.

"It is the hardest thing I have ever done," says the actor who, by his own admission, prefers the complicated and complex over the effortlessly entertaining.

But if he genuinely needs reminding of why he wanted to do it, Ionda and The Chairs director George Tudor are happy to provide answers. When the three friends sat down to discuss a work for the festival, designed to reflect Auckland as a multicultural and diverse city, it seemed like a great idea on lots of levels. Ionda and Tudor are Romanian and, as relatively new New Zealanders - they've been here about five years - wanted to bring something new to the festival which echoed their part of the world.

Additionally, performances in French recognise Auckland's small but significant and growing Francophile community. Sitting with the actors in a French bistro in Grey Lynn, with people speaking French and listening to French music, the evidence of this is obvious.

It was also a chance for the cast to push themselves as actors under director Tudor, an Ionesco fan who has previously directed The Chairs in French. In Europe, the play has become something of a cult favourite with regular revivals.

In The Chairs, a man and a woman arrange chairs for a series of invisible guests invited to hear the man reveal his discovery of the meaning of life. But he worries incessantly that he cannot express himself and hires an orator to do the talking.

Like most Theatre of the Absurd, its central premise is the idea that life is essentially meaningless and uses a blend of farce, physical theatre and black comedy to poke fun at our attempts to make sense of it all.

"It is to remind us to stop and enjoy life while we can," says Tudor, "because often we find ourselves too busy to do that. It passes us by."

Auckland Festival

What: The Chairs
Where and when: Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre, March 12-15, 24-28 (in English); March 17-22 (in French)It's absurd - but full of meaning