KEY POINTS:
Contemporary American playwright Neil LaBute is something of a Silo Theatre favourite. For the past three years, creative director Shane Bosher has included a LaBute play on Silo's programme.
"He puts the most delicious words into the characters' mouths," says Bosher.
So it seems fitting as the theatre celebrates its 10th birthday, and deservedly looks back with satisfaction at its achievements, to bring LaBute's latest work to Auckland.
Described as a "caustic comedy gem", Some Girl(s) follows the guileless Guy (Roy Snow) who, about to tie the knot, is overcome with guilt about how badly he has treated a string of ex-girlfriends.
Seeking to make amends, he travels to four different cities to visit four women: Sam (Jacque Drew), his homely high-school sweetheart; Tyler (Madeleine Sami), a sexually liberated femme fatale; Lindsey (Alison Bruce), an older married woman he left abruptly during a torrid affair; and Bobbi (Michelle Langstone), the one he never quite got over over.
While Some Girl(s) sticks to LaBute's award-winning formula - lacerating dialogue and plot twists aplenty - he has changed tack slightly.
Rather than contemporary drama with darkly comic moments, Some Girl(s) is a romantic comedy and women, rather than the alpha males LaBute is famous for, take centre stage.
Bosher purposely chose a female director, Margaret-Mary Hollins.
"Our production of The Women benefited very much from a team of magnificent female talent and we've sought to recapture that essence here," he says.
"With all of those women in the room, poor Roy sometimes has a bit of a battle sticking up for the male gender but I think this innate friction sets off some hilarious dynamics."
He says Silo worked with Hollins as she began developing her directing career, on productions of Macbeth and Beautiful Losers, and he wanted to find a "vehicle" to showcase her talent.
"When I read this, its black sense of humour really stuck with me. Margaret-Mary sprang immediately to mind."
Hollins, in turn, laughed all the way through reading the script and enjoyed the fact that the female characters are not one-dimensional wives, mothers or girlfriends who exist solely to propel a male character through the story.
"I had certain actors in mind as soon as I read the script. Tyler is very sex kittenish and I thought, 'Madeleine Sami is perfect for this'."
Having worked most recently on devised work, often in youth theatre, bringing to life a "grown-up" scripted production has its own challenges - using the text to find characters' motivation and creating a couple of realistic sex scenes.
"We've introduced a lot of really fantastic jazz and soul and funk music," says Hollings. "The music is great."
Roy Snow and Alison Bruce appeared in Silo productions of LaBute's previous work: Snow in This is how it Goes and Bruce in The Mercy Seat.
Both wanted a second shot.
"The Silo is the perfect venue for this," says Snow, "because the audience is so close, probably closer than they want to be, but you get an intimate atmosphere and the feeling of being involved in someone's life.
"Being that close, you can see everything - the sweat on the brow - and I think that contributes to a play like this."
Premiered on London's West End in 2005, the British version of Some Girl(s) starred ex-Friends star David Schwimmer.
In the United States Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Fran Drescher (The Nanny) and ER's Maura Tierney have appeared.
