The boringly obvious trope for a Shakespeare-in-prison narrative is salvation through supposed enlightenment and Cellfish could so easily have been To Miss, With Love, with Miriama McDowell as Sidney Poitier.
But refreshingly, this complex, knowing two-hander avoids this trap, and instead plays with audience expectation on many levels. For instance, an idealised Corrections Officer identifies with Shakespeare's Benvolio (he wants the best for everyone) and also speaks fluent te reo with an Indian accent. It's great to see an onstage exchange between Maori and non-Pakeha tauiwi unmediated by Pakeha.
Many more characters identify with archetypes: Shakespearean, Maori and comic book heroic. Do such chosen icons shape or simply reflect their interaction with the world? Cellfish leaves this as an open question.
The inmates are sympathetically portrayed; their offences are not ignored but they are backgrounded. The focus instead is inter-generational violence. We hear that nobody starts off as a menacing "taniwha" and, as one character says, when discussing the media frenzy over dead babies,"nobody cares about the babies who survive".
The script by McDowell, Rob Mokaraka and director Jason Te Kare is beautifully polished and superbly supported by Thomas Press' soundscapes which bring amusing fantasies to life.
