Different act for the fans

By LINDA HERRICK


Some sad-sacks have a brief flash of fame from starring in what's euphemistically known as "cult television". Then they never work again, trapped on the seriously weird international sci-fi convention circuit.

We see them in Auckland each year at the Armageddon Pulp Culture Expo - the faded faces from Star Trek, Stargate SGI, Lexx, Enterprise ... and Hercules, the New Zealand-made retro-action fantasy series.

Michael Hurst knows all too well what it's like to be on that convention round.

During his eight-year stint as Iolaus, big Herc's comical sidekick, the Auckland actor-director built up an avid international fanbase.

Even though it's been a few years since production on the series ceased, he's still occasionally called upon to serve convention duty. It has its moments.

"I went to one in Weston-super-Mare in England last October," he says. "The English conventions are funny. This one was called 'Cult TV' and it included Hercules and shows like Dr Who, Blue Peter, The Prisoner, Captain Scarlett.

"There's nothing funnier than seeing five grown men dressed as Captain Scarlett sitting around drinking pints of ale and eating black pudding."

The difference between those grown men endlessly reliving the past and Hurst, who is 46, is that he has moved on.

But some of those Hercules fans haven't. They have come from the United States to be in his Maidment Theatre audience tonight when he opens Macbeth, in which he stars (and directs) as one of Shakespeare's most malevolent villains.

The dialogue will be a little different. Instead of trading ridiculous quips with the hulking American actor Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules, Hurst - a superb Shakespearean actor - will be climbing into the black heart of "so foul and fair a day".

Fans also came from overseas last year for his Hamlet. Through the years, some have become good friends.

"There are two types of fans. Some of them have become friends more than fans.

"One of them lives here now, and one comes over [from the United States], and they do a lot of really good stuff.

"I'm the patron of Tapac Theatre [in Western Springs] and we've raised a whole lot of money for it - Iolaus' things might be auctioned off, and those two co-ordinate the money to go to Tapac."

Hurst believes around a dozen overseas Hercules fans will see Macbeth during its first few days.

"Those fans who have become friends, I'm really chuffed about. Then there's the other end of fandom, which is the intense kind of strangeness."

A FAN of a different sort altogether, Hurst's 7-year-old son Jack, will also be in the audience - probably at a matinee. Hurst and his wife, actress Jennifer Ward-Lealand, have another son, Cameron, who at four is judged too young for the horrors of the Scottish play.

Last year, Jack went to Hurst's Hamlet, in which he also played the lead (and directed) - and laughed.

Hurst points at the long black leather couch in the lounge which was used as a stage prop.

"This is the Hamlet couch. When I dived on that couch, he burst out laughing because I do that around the house."

But Jack sounds like a perspicacious lad when it came to analysing the Danish prince's mood swings.

"He said to me, 'I really liked it Dad, but why were you happy then sad then happy then angry then sad then happy?' Which is a good question."

Herc fever - and the fans - may be about to resurface. As well as playing the title role of Goldie in the Auckland Theatre Company's production which ended a week ago, and rehearsing Macbeth, Hurst has been back in Los Angeles narrating the Hercules DVD release. Sorbo was there as well.

"We had a great session with him doing the voiceovers. It was hilarious. He and I always got on like a house on fire. Lots of it was very silly, lots of it was amazing.

There are a few episodes when I go, 'eeww, that's bad'. But I certainly have no regrets doing it."

Of course not. Apart from the fun side of working with the Hercules team, and with Lucy Lawless and co on some episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, in which Hurst starred and directed, it must have been a financial godsend. American television productions which run for years pay well. Theatre in New Zealand does not.

For instance, last year's production of Hamlet by Hurst's Large Group, which he runs with Ward-Lealand and director-actor Christian Penny, cost $200,000 to mount.

Typically, Aucklanders were slow to book in the first couple of weeks. Then the glowing reviews came out and word of mouth spread. The rest of the season sold out - and the Large Group lost $30,000.

Hurst was saved by the granting of an Arts Laureate, which awarded him $40,000.

But his Macbeth is even more expensive at $280,000.

HURST directed and starred in a production of Macbeth in 1986, darkened by a mood of what he then described as "some very bad vibes".

He recalls that at the time he was ill with a lung infection.

"At the back of the set we had this bucket full of "blood', which was runny cold cream. I could hardly breathe and I had to splatter myself with this stuff which was really cold.

"I remember thinking that this was the most workmanlike moment of theatre I could ever imagine doing. 'I'm only in it for the glamour.' Splat, splat."

Then, he was a gym junkie, much bigger than he is today. "I went at that one with an incredibly bullnecked feel. I had no hair, I was relentlessly thuggish. Whereas now, I'm older, my energies are dispersed in a different way, I don't feel that evil vibe around here [his home]. But when I'm in the theatre it does feel like a dark thing."

Hurst acknowledges that directing oneself can have its dangers. As an example, he points to the television "mockumentary" Love Mussel he directed in 2001, starring his friend Kevin Smith - and himself.

"We looked at the takes [of one of his own scenes]. I looked at the editor, who I could see was worried. I said, 'What can we do to save this actor?"'

Macbeth is fearfully physical, with intense, brutal fight scenes. Usually, we see the Scottish rivals going at each other with swords; a lifetime ago, Hurst was Canterbury fencing champion as a teenager in Christchurch.

But there's a shock with this one. He has traded swords for fists, and will die - well, we all know the ending, don't we? - by being beaten to death.

"I have taken it that at the end Macbeth is like a bear in a pit with no one on his side," he muses.

"He's just like people like Saddam, Hitler, who end up in a hole in the ground.

"That's why the play sings, because all these things are true. How did Shakespeare know these things? How did he know that?"