Rubbings From a Live Man

Rating:

* * * *

Verdict:

Unabashedly outrageous and often very moving portrayal of a local theatrical maestro.

Anyone lucky enough to have witnessed (or, luckier still, taken part in) a Warwick Broadhead show will find this portrait of the artist irresistible; anyone else will find it mystifying - but may not be immune to its many fascinations.

In several dozen shows over four decades, Broadhead created flamboyant, extravagant pieces of theatre, using non-professional performers who always shared in the shows' conception as well as their execution. He also staged what might be called "home theatre", tabletop adaptations of

The Hunting of the Snark

and

The Selfish Giant

, performed in people's homes for audiences of a dozen or so.

Habicht (director of

Woodenhead

- in which Broadhead played Hugo, the rubbish dump boss - and the post-bogan slice-of-life

Kaikohe Demolition

) describes this film in a secondary title as "a documentary performed by Warwick Broadhead" and that's apt: before the camera, the artist recalls, re-enacts, re-interprets and wrestles with episodes of his own life. Often he adopts alter egos for the purpose: there's a marvellous moment when he says: "I was in one of Warwick Broadhead's shows - I couldn't understand it, but the costumes were great". But there are also intensely first-person revelatory monologues about growing up in a brick house in Mt Roskill, about family tragedies and the guilt and pain they left behind.

The film provides a great glimpse into the nature of Broadhead's performances, which were never so much technically showy as examples of lateral leaps of imagination - a handbag becomes a hat; a standard lamp a flute - but it is predominantly a glimpse into the heart and soul of a rather special man. Fascinating, obscure and unusual.

Peter Calder

Cast:

Warwick Broadhead

Director:

Florian Habicht

Running time:

75 mins

Rating:

R13 -  adult themes

Screening:

Rialto