From a hard-hitting healthcare drama to a campy, neo-Victorian biography.
The back rooms of many theatres in Tāmaki Makaurau are currently housing rehearsals for some major theatre showcases, with performances from emerging and seasoned artists set to hit the stage over the next month.
The creatives behind three shows pause
Things That Matter
An overworked and under-resourced intensive care specialist endures the difficult conditions of frontline healthcare.
The opening of Things That Matter has been a long-delayed occasion — the healthcare drama was scheduled to open in 2021 but faced a Covid-influenced cancellation. After that long wait, the show is set to open this Saturday at the ASB Waterfront Theatre.
The play is adapted from the bestselling memoir of Dr David Galler, a former Middlemore Hospital Intensive Care Specialist. Things That Matter: Stories of Life and Death was released in 2017 and explored major events and lessons that Dr Galler experienced in his time as a health practitioner on the front line. Of course, among rolling lockdowns, the original opening date of the show had a real resonance. However, Dr Galler is certain that Things That Matter will be as pertinent as ever. “In the time since the play was first set to run,” he says, “the issues in the health system have deepened and are more pressing than ever before, but with that comes a greater opportunity to make change and progress in a purposeful way.”
The play follows Dr Raf Beckman (played by actor and director Ian Hughes of The Brokenwood Mysteries and The Lord of the Rings), an intensive care specialist at Middlemore who is buried beneath a growing pile of stress. The doctor is attempting to manage an ICU at full capacity as he faces overly bureaucratic systems and deeply unresourced working conditions, while his own mother’s health is declining. Cast member Shaan Kesha noted that the subject matter, based on a real person, creates a demand for realism in the show.
The play works to address issues of inequity in the health sector, says director Anapela Polata’ivao. “There are some hard-hitting truths about racism and the impacts of the system on those living below the poverty line. It’s hard to hear these discussions but they need to be heard and the play gives a voice to these issues, which ultimately affect us all.”
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Advertise with NZME.Amid their rehearsal, cast members said they hope the play will impact audiences set to see the show over the next few weeks. “I hope that audiences walk away with a little bit of insight into what goes on in our hospitals with the mahi that our doctors and nurses go through on a daily basis to care for people as well as an understanding of the politics,” says Petmal Lam. “I hope that people walk away and try their best to live a more fulfilling life every day with a little bit more love and kindness towards others.”
Things That Matter will play at the ASB Waterfront Theatre from August 12 to 27. A selection of showings will be New Zealand Sign Language Interpreted, audio-described and include a touch tour. Tickets start from $22.
Minnie & Judy
The lives and legacies of Minnie Dean and Judy Garland are explored through a stellar collaboration between two performers.
Judy Garland and Minnie Dean gift their names and complicated cultural characters to this Basement show, set to premiere in mid-August. Minnie & Judy will explore the idea of iconoclasm, by examining the stories of the two historical figures, remembered in their own knotty ways.
Performers and creatives Murdoch Keane and Peter Burman have brought together their respective imaginings of each historical figure for the event — four years ago, at the end of their first years of drama school, they each created solo shows at Toi Whakaari about one of the figures and noticed some interesting parallels between the two stories. In Minnie & Judy, they bring the two worlds together to better understand and deconstruct those parallels.
By presenting their stories beside each other, the showcase will look to explore the similarities and mythical morals that arise between the women’s lives and legacies. “In Minnie’s case, it was something that people really came to fear about her, and in Judy’s case it was something people really came to love,” says Keane of the way the myths around each woman impacted their lives. “At the end of the day, they both had a similar effect and lead to these women’s downfalls.”
The performers look to push the biographical storytelling to something both “camp” and “neo-Victorian”. “We always want people to have a blast. We are big lovers of capital-T theatre. We want to give people this feeling that they’ve seen two people who are really punching above their weight for an hour.”
Keane adds, “And about these two women, I’d like to [create] an eagerness to engage with stuff that is not like us, but could be. One of my favourite things about art is the way that it can surpass so many things if it speaks to the spirit of who we are.”
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Advertise with NZME.The performance is set to be a smart, witty, technicolour imagining of these complex cultural ideas, perfectly primed for those well-versed in the Gothic histories of Aotearoa and the idolisation of Hollywood’s yellow brick traveller.
Minnie & Judy will show at the Basement Theatre from August 15 to 19. The full show run is a choose-what-you-pay event.
Moe Miti
A multi-sensorial production explores the intricacies and complications of healing via an intense and empathetic lens.
Moving across multiple methods of storytelling to explore Pasifika identity, Moe Miti will bring audiences into a dreamy space through choreography, indigenous instrumentation and thoughtful stage design integrated through deeply collaborative rehearsals with technical experts.
The performance explores the relationship between Pepe and Valu, daughter and mother, as they navigate and negotiate their relationship with ancient and contemporary influences and pressures.
Debut director Katrina George says it’s been “electrifying” to bring the project, which has been in development for about two years, to the collaborators and performers involved in the show.
The key idea for audiences continues to shift as development continues in those rehearsals, she says, where the show changes and adapts to new revelations. “The work is really about intergenerational trauma, or what I’ve been calling gifts as well, and what you do with that. The work is also about projection, and how sometimes what our needs are shapes how we see the people we love. [It follows] a daughter and a mother and their dynamic is very intense and tumultuous, but a lot of it is about how the daughter sees the mother in a particular way — not necessarily all of her complexity.”
George hopes that the audience will relate to the tricky family dynamics, move towards understanding the messy and realistic complexities of healing, and recognise other people with a wide and empathetic lens.
Moe Miti is set to be an emotional showcase, one that will sit with the audience after the curtain closes.
Moe Miti will play in Q Theatre’s loft from August 22 to 27. Tickets start from $25; there are also showings with a pay-as-you-wish option.
