Red Fish, Blue Fish at the SiLo Theatre

By FRANCIS TILL

Red Fish, Blue Fish is the promising start in a trilogy of new New Zealand plays appearing in rapid sequence at the SiLo.

Aptly drawn from Dr Seuss, the title of this starter, a very engaging comedic duet by Pip Hall, says a lot about the play.

First, as one would expect from the good doctor, a lot of what happens actually involves fish.

There's fish and the Discovery Channel. Fish grown too big for their little ponds. Fish as metaphor and fish as fact.

But mostly it's fish as one of the knowledge pods trotted out by Janie, a lovely and precocious child of 5 or so who lives a few houses down from Tim, who is another kettle of fish altogether, and has a pivotal pond full of them in his backyard.

The story is told in an almost Seussian way, through a large collection of brief, tight, bright chapters, each of which happen - perhaps in homage to television transitions - to be named after weather bulletins.

At one point, Janie advises Tim on the relative needs of goldfish, saying that no one knows why some fish fail to thrive, and that in any pond, only one fish can grow large, and then only as large as the pond allows.

Tim seizes on this to transform Janie into his personal version of Chance Gardener, the simpleton hailed as a sage in Jerzy Kosinski's novel Being There.

Tim follows what he thinks is her advice as far as his fear of larger waters will let him, which, it turns out, is predictably back where he started.

Big fish, small pond. Imperatives and reflective surfaces everywhere.

Pip Hall has both a literary sensibility and terrific ear for dialogue - a promising combination.

Cherie James and Craig Hall give smashing performances as Janie and Tim.

Hall provides sympathetic insight into a character whose humanity is ultimately only incidental and narcissistic.

James creates a Janie complete and complex enough to matter as a figure in literature, or life.

And Rebecca Hobbs' debut as a director shows a ready-for-prime-time sense of pace, place and development.