Theatre of male bonding has comedy and truth

By SUSAN BUDD

SKY CITY, Auckland - The underbelly of the Great Australian Male is exposed in Glyn Nicholas' play that combines songs, mime and sharp dialogue to provide a hilarious and sometimes moving study of men's hopes and fears.

Jared (Don Baker), a boss of the old school, has invited three of his employees for a long weekend at the tropical Medusa Resort. His pretext is a think-tank on restructuring the company, but he is dying and probing for their suitability as partners in the enterprise.

It becomes an Iron Man bonding session in which their weaknesses are revealed and orthodoxies questioned.

The men, as portrayed by a high-energy and talented cast, are a disparate crew. Alex, played by Jeremy Stanford with intelligence and a mellow singing voice, is an anxious workaholic, protesting undying devotion to his wife and child while never managing to spend quality time with them.

At 42, Geoff is on his fourth marriage - and that is on the rocks. Will it ever dawn on him that he is trapped into repeating the same pattern in his relationships with women? Russell Fletcher plays this sexist Peter Pan with terrific comic skill, relishing the guy's crudity while giving faint intimations of dawning sensibility.

Howard is the youngest. A style Nazi, he avoids commitment in favour of quantity, reserving quality for the material trappings of his life. Christopher Gabardi gives him cool to the max, combined with a slightly sulky, dawning awareness that love, with all its human mess, might be the ultimate possession.

The dialogue sparkles with wit and there are some hilarious set-pieces, meticulously mimed, with only a couple of puzzling exceptions. Their singing, with one exception, is tuneful and pianist Greg Riddell accompanies with verve.

Certified Male is not terribly profound and overlong for such slight material, but it contains enough truth and comedy to provide good entertainment and a little enlightenment.