The End of the Golden Weather at the Bruce Mason Theatre

By SUSAN BUDD

Bruce Mason's great solo show is as redolent of New Zealand childhood as Buzzy Bee.

The long summer days at Te Parenga, based on his own childhood at Takapuna Beach in the 1930s, have become part of our collective experience and it is fitting that at last the Bruce Mason Theatre in Takapuna is playing host to its namesake.

The beach conjured up in the play is very different from the stretch of sand now lined with prime real estate and backed by smart shops and cafes.

The bungalows that Mason described have given way to bigger edifices but they still have "a skimped look" next to Rangitoto's natural majesty, and the community of villagers has disappeared into the same limbo as Firpo's tumbledown bach.

Peter Vere-Jones is the first actor that Mason's widow, Diana, has allowed to perform the play so closely associated with her husband. Her trust has not been misplaced.

The play's "voyage into that territory of the heart we call childhood" covers a greater distance now, but the golden weather still glows with an enchanting light.

Vere-Jones makes no attempt to imitate Mason's idiosyncratic style, but gives an almost self-effacing performance that allows the rich language and imagery to emerge free and unforced. The Sunday ravishment by sun and sea are clearly and quietly evoked.

Once the scene is set and principal characters are drawn, the stage is peopled with characters that Vere-Jones embodies without seeming effort - the stolid mounted policeman and men without hope of work on the night of the Queen St riots, performers and audience to the hilarious family concert on Christmas Day, and, most brilliantly, Firpo in Act 2.

Gareth Farr's incidental music evokes perfectly the sense of endless summer and Tony De Goldi's beautifully spare set floats against an azure backdrop.