Fringe theatre alive and well with Ping

By SUSAN BUDD

ADJACENT TO MERCURY LANE CAR PARK, Auckland - As Aristotle said, there are few plots in drama. Ping's initially appears to be that of King Lear.

A corporate Mr Big disappears. John K. Freeman has passed management of ATE Corporation to his daughters, disaster has struck as the company undergoes a demerger (sic) and share prices plummet.

But the Lear story is not what unfolds.

Using a combination of theatre of the absurd, film noir and German expressionist drama, to mention only a few, Simon Taylor's multi-media production traces the search of Johnathon Milk, a corporate minion, for meaning and, ultimately, freedom.

Witness to a boardroom murder, he stumbles terror-stricken about a dark wasteland (a space beside the Mercury Lane Car Park) under a starry sky.

Music, a melange of classical, techno-rock, voices and static, blares to compound his confusion until Freeman, who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, appears to bully and berate him.

As in Greek drama, the most exciting action occurs offstage, projected onto the car park's concrete walls. The murder is shown graphically, in black and white.

There are some stunning images - blood spurts on to the lens of Milk's glasses, the very lens in which we see the murder reflected; the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, flashes repeatedly into frame.

The knife appears in reality, wielded by Murray, the very model of an up-and-coming corporate high-flier. He sits, framed in a huge rubber tyre, to pass judgment on Milk, who is condemned to fly, lobotomised, to the satellites that in spying on Earth compromise our freedom, or so Freeman maintains.

The scales of justice, naturally, shift balance before the end of the play.

Despite excellent performances from Mark Clare as the blustering Freeman, Jeff Gane as the almost terminally insecure Milk and Kenny King as flash Murray, the characters are essentially ciphers.

Their motivations are inexplicable and much of their dialogue obscure.

It is Dominic Taylor's filmed images that are the centre, providing theatrical tension and excitement.

They are imaginative and compelling: the grid in which one tiny figure, then two, scurry, the film noir murder, the huge globe and the starry sky.

It is seldom that Auckland audiences have the opportunity to see high-quality, committed fringe theatre, but they now can by buying tickets from Brazil in Karangahape Rd.