After their acclaimed production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit and their adaptation of Tracey Slaughter’s novella The Longest Drink in Town (which recently received seed funding from the New Zealand Writers Guild for a potential screen adaptation), One Question Theatre takes yet another daring theatrical step forward with their production of the acclaimed Closer by Patrick Marber.
Set in London in the early 2000s, failed novelist Dan, photographer Anna, sex worker Alice, and dermatologist Larry become intimately bound in one another’s flesh, playing a brutal game of love, lust and deceit. “I first saw Closer when I was 16 and was awe-struck”, says co-founder of One Question and co-director Liam Hinton.
“I fell in love with its intensity and its intimacy. It’s a stunning and visceral portrait of desire, and the regret that often accompanies the realisation of desire.”
The play is most well-known for its 2004 film adaptation directed by Mike Nichols and starring Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, and Jude Law. Says Hinton, “Nichols’ film is an excellent adaptation, but in moving the play to a medium with different constraints I feel some element of depth is lost or changed. Reading the play script, I became fascinated with the previously unseen small angles of these characters and the shadows they cast.”
In this production, local performers Ajsha Treblico, Hannah-Rose Cook and Benny Marama take on the roles of Anna, Alice, and Larry respectively.
