The Mayfly at SiLo

By FRANCIS TILL

Commissioned by Young and Hungry Youth Arts Trust in Wellington for its 2001 showcase, The Mayfly is intended for young, fringe audiences and it shows.

There is not much here in the way of insight, revelation or innovative theatre, but a sparkling cast takes the play well above the theme and perhaps even the script, in a production that spends most of its cast's energy on having fun, moving in interesting ways, making unusual noises and putting a huge bolt of fabric to metaphorical, sometimes annoying, uses.

Jacqueline van Beek may have written this coming-of-age allegory as a parody of a genre, and in that light it's often terrific.

But as with most parodies, once you get the joke - and you get this one straight away - all merit depends on the telling.

Fortunately, van Beek shows once again that she has a terrific ear and an eye for comic oddities, a trait that is becoming a trademark. And director Michael Dwyer takes advantage of every opportunity to exploit the script for maximum entertainment value.

The dialogue is often delicious, but no one in the piece is better drawn, has better lines, or executes them better, than Woofie, the talking border collie (Kate Sullivan), who tries to save the heroine, Dun (Liesha Ward Knox), from becoming an adult mayfly and dying at dusk.

Sullivan warps beautifully the woof of this play.

Dun is not only the name of the angst-saturated adolescent protagonist, but of a mayfly at a sub-adult stage of development.

Sadly, most of the other meanings of the word also apply to the character, if not the performance.

In lesser hands, Dun could drag the play into an abyss of self-absorbed meanders around the arid paddocks out back - especially since, as the point of focus, Knox has the least interpretive latitude with her role.

Rema Smith as the clipped wing, vacantly dreaming Mum is another particularly fine performance, and one to which she lends considerable subtext gravitas.

Mark Clare does as well to his hammer-mad, love-torn Dad.

Dun's love interest Cha-Chi (Tainui Tukiwaho) did not have much script to work with, but still managed to project an altogether engaging presence.

The GE scientists, One-Check (Angela Shirley) and Two-Check (Michael Morris), a couple of fast-mumbling argumentative trout with hidden agendas, kept the farcical elements on full boil.