As our theatres begin to reopen, it seems inevitable that we will begin to see work shaped by our current pandemic. No other event has had such a seismic, global impact this century, and given the harsh effects it has had on live theatre, it is no surprise that we'd see that transferred to the stage.
For the Auckland Theatre Company's first commission post-lockdown, they've gone back to the Plague for inspiration. 48 Nights on Hope Street is inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, a 14th century storytelling epic where seven women and three men, sheltering from the Black Plague, swapped stories every night for a fortnight.
Here, the ATC has assembled five cast members (Carrie Green, Trae Te Wiki, Ravikanth Gurunathan, Jess Hong, Patrick Tafa) to play with the words of five young writers (Freya Daly Sadgrove, Leki Jackson-Bourke, Nathan Joe, Ana Scotney, Cian Elyse White), drawing inspiration from the 10 days that made up Boccaccio's work.
Mercifully, Covid has little to do with 48 Nights. The staging may be socially distanced – the audience is spread across the Waterfront Theatre's stage, rough platforms scattered throughout the crowd as a makeshift stage – but that is the only sign of a post-pandemic work. Rather, the playwrights have generated nine pieces that shine a new light on the big debates that continue to simmer away beneath this pandemic – racism, sexuality, class, religion – creating one of the most energetic, engaging and hilarious hours the ATC has ever produced.
With so many voices involved, an anthology work like this could have easily devolved into a tonal mess. But all nine pieces, stitched together by director Jane Yonge, remain on the same wavelength throughout. Opening gently with White's Wish Upon a Star, the tone is set by Nathan Joe's frenetic How to Write a Love Poem in 2020, a madcap opener that sets the early energy that slowly winds down as the pieces progress, until we reach Ana Scotney's quieter but no less thought-provoking Nathan.
