Imagination works between frames

By GREG DIXON

By telephone, there's no way of knowing whether Duncan Sarkies has wild man eyes, but I fancy he does.

On the blower from Wellington, the writer-performer sounds neither feral nor barking. But, as he talks about bringing his one-man theatre show Wild Man Eyes to Auckland, he certainly does seem to have a bulging-eyed devotion to an ever-evolving self-expression.

And few forms seem beyond the 31-year-old. Sarkies is probably best known for co-writing with his brother Robert the hit local film Scarfies, which won six awards, including best film, at the New Zealand Film Awards in 2000.

The same year, his first book, Stray Thoughts and Nose Bleeds, was shortlisted for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards and won the best new book gong.

Wild Man Eyes is an adaptation of sorts of the pub show Stray Thoughts and Nose Bleeds, which became the book.

Featuring eight stories and a slide show, it will have a two-night run at Titirangi's Lopdell House during this month's Going West Books and Writers knees-up.

Wild Man Eyes isn't Sarkies' first work of theatre. Since graduating from Victoria University with a BA in Drama in 1996, he has written a fistful of plays, including Saving Grace, which also found its way on to film.

Ask Sarkies if he's aiming to be a one-man industry, and he giggles his amusing, high-pitched titter. "I would say it's just a product of not being able to concentrate on anything for any length of time. I get bored very easily. But it's a nice thing to be generally creative rather than stick to one thing."

He doesn't prefer one medium over the others. "It's almost to do with the idea of creating memories for people. The magic of theatre is that you create a memory and the people who were there know they saw something no one else got to see. It's also the frustration of theatre. I like the fact that when you've made a film it's there forever. I wrote a book, it's there forever."

In his Stray Thoughts and Nose Bleeds pub show, Sarkies read eight short stories, some autobiographical, like OE, which is about learning he was to become a father while in Amsterdam, others not, like Wild Man Eyes, about a man with wild eyes who is office-ridden.

Sarkies didn't just read these strange, amusing little tales, however, he performed them with slides of commissioned photographs by Matt Grace as a backdrop. The follow-up book expanded the yarns with Grace's photographs.

Wild Man Eyes further extends his original concept, this time showing 400 slides during the hour-long performance. "But the two shows couldn't be more different, despite having the same material," Sarkies says. "The slide show - despite my visions of it being mum and dad's holiday snaps from Taihape - is about finding a different form.

"I like the fact that slides are something we associate with an old style. And because it's an art form that's not being done so much these days, it's easy to provide something unique.

"I'm also a bit sick of the whole multimedia thing in a way and I like the simplicity of a slide show. It is what it is, there are no lies about it. Someone once said it was like watching a film at one frame a minute. It leaves a lot to your imagination, but it shifts your imagination, it take you somewhere sideways."

Like you're seeing the world through wild man eyes, one imagines.

* Wild Man Eyes, Titirangi Theatre, Lopdell House, Friday-Saturday, as part of the Going West Books and Writers Festival

Waitakere City Council