Play parodies the 'designer' factor in modern relationships

By NIGEL GEARING

A year in the life of a contemporary Wellington family is the subject of playwright Gabe McDonnell's first full-length play.

Other Theatre Company selected Year Of Grants, then chose Irene Malone to direct the play, which had previously been workshopped by the Auckland Theatre Company.

"We haven't changed the setting, Wellington, as it is localised and suits the characters and we didn't want to change the naturalistic dialogue too much," Malone says.

"This play is unusual in that it doesn't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Rather, it is a series of flowing vignettes."

Gregor McLennan plays Robert, father of two. Sacha Stejko, aged 14, plays 16-year-old Lisa, an over-achiever who has already had an abortion and dealt with the whole ordeal herself.

"She is the sort of character you can imagine ending up with anorexia and everyone wondering why," Malone says. "She is brilliant at fixing the family's problems but not her own."

Eve Gordon plays the phobic 24-year-old Sally, who is in a "meta-relationship" with Grant - a character who never appears but is the subject of Sally's anguish and tears at the beginning of the play.

"Their characters parody the modern relationship where everything down to the light fittings must be 'designer', where the relationship can only last as long as the ideal can last," Malone says.

"Once one of the characters turns up in gross pants the reality can't be reconciled and so the search is on for the next meta-relationship."

Robert decides to quit work to write the great New Zealand novel. His wife, Georgina, played by Madeleine Lynch, supports his stance but in doing so is forced to work double shifts as a nurse. She soon realises that supporting her husband's dream will be at the cost of her own dream.

Enter her brother, Ray, played by Richard Thompson. After 15 years in India he has decided to return to the family fold. But he dies, and this provides the catalyst for Georgina's marriage meltdown. As with every family, interwoven in the tragedy that is dysfunction lies much comedy.

Robert's fantasy of having made it as a writer suffers a bitter blow when Kim Hill provides a sarcastic bringing-down-to-size of the author talking on radio to the nation's exhausted intelligentsia on a Saturday morning.

On stage

* What: Year Of Grants

* Where: Rose Community Theatre, School Rd, Belmont

* When: To August 14, 8pm