What: Flipside
Where and when: Tapac, Western Springs, March 4-13
This could be the year of SmackBang, the theatre company in residence at the Auckland Performing Arts Centre (Tapac). Co-directors Charlie Unwin and Tainui Tukiwaho are about to launch the first of five plays planned for this year alone.
They are starting with an epic homegrown production which sticks to the company's philosophy of reviving, encouraging and promoting local theatre.
Written in the late 90s by Ken Duncum and produced in Wellington in 2000, Flipside is about the real-life story of four sailors who survived 119 days drifting at sea when the trimaran Rose Noelle capsized in the Pacific.
Virtual strangers John Glennie, James Nalepka, Rick Hellriegel and Phil Hoffman embarked on a journey to Tonga only to be hit by a giant wave which tipped the boat upside down and stranded them.
But Flipside is far from a boy's own adventure tale. It also transports the audience forward several months after the crew washed ashore at Great Barrier Island. Having survived so long at sea, Hellriegel (played by Matt Hudson) faced another epic battle when he suffered a recurrence of cancer. Fellow shipmate Nalepka (played by Phil Peleton) spent time caring for Hellriegel, showing how deeply men can bond in times of crisis.
Unwin knew Flipside was the ideal way to start the year when he read - and couldn't put down - Duncum's decade-old script.
"We want to find New Zealand plays that had a previous life and bring them back because there are so many which, like Flipside, deserve to be seen again," he says.
While the stereotypical image of the New Zealand male may be taciturn and detached, Flipside turns this on its head by "deconstructing" ideas about the male psyche.
It is this aspect of the play, which won Production of the Year at the 2000 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards, which has put the all-male cast and crew in a contemplative frame of mind.
"It is a great play for male actors because it digs into the way men behave under pressure," says Peleton.
"It does strike that 'man alone' New Zealand thing where they survive in the wilderness against all odds and the elements thanks to No 8 fencing wire," says Will Wallace, who plays Phil Hoffman.
But Hudson disagrees, saying it is a universal story which could have happened in any country with strong sailing traditions and the men on board would have reacted in the same way if they were four individuals from, for argument's sake, Sweden. It has also got the cast and director Unwin thinking about how they might react in a similar crisis.
"I think I'd be the one complaining and then gradually adjusting," says Unwin. "It's kind of odd that at no point do they sit down and confer as a team and work out what they are going to do. They all just slip into their own roles.
"It's a situation which naturally makes you wonder, 'What would I do?'. I think it's something a lot of men think about, particularly when it comes to war. I wonder what I might have been like in a battle - probably would have got into a foetal position and quivered."
Hudson has the most outdoors experience and says he thinks he would have been keen to get on, make a plan and concentrate on staying alive - much like his Flipside character.
"I'm definitely one for the great indoors," says Peleton, "so I'd definitely panic and be looking for leadership from someone else."
Wallace says he'd panic, too, but eventually come around to dealing with the situation because he likes solving problems. Unwin thinks the audiences will also ponder this "what would I do" question, particularly given the production design. The action takes places on a stage built like an upturned boat while the audience sit around it bathed in light designed to look as if they are in the water.
"There's a lot of references to thirst and water so we bet at half-time, people will be feeling thirsty and wanting a drink."
Duncum has spoken with the cast about the play but will not attend opening night. In October, the Wellington-based playwright received the New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize. A $100,000 writer-in-residency award, the recipient spends a minimum of six months at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, France, where Katherine Mansfield lived and wrote in 1919-20.
Duncum has been writing for theatre and television for more than 20 years and is the director of scriptwriting at Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters. He intends to work on two major theatre projects while in France.
