Rep Talk: The Viewing Room

Dark comedy The Viewing Room is being considered for production by Whanganui Repertory. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion:

Recently Repertory Theatre was approached by American scriptwriter Mark Smith inviting us to consider his play The Viewing Room for production in Whanganui.

It's a dark comedy. The story is that Chester has passed away but the higher powers have ordered him to return to the family to settle unresolved issues, clear up misunderstandings.

He makes his appearance to his startled family in the Viewing Room. Once his widow and adult children recover from their shock, they bombard him with questions as to why he behaved towards them in the way that he did.

Chester is revealed to be a hard-working, largely well intentioned, controlling and emotionally bankrupt father and husband. To be fair, he probably wasn't very different to a lot of men of his generation, scarred by the years of the Great Depression and the Second World War.

If you want to take a message from this play I'd say that you should tell your loved ones that you do in fact love them before it's too late.

Simply paying the bills isn't enough. This sounds quite serious but it is in fact very funny with a lot of great one-liners.

I was interested to see that two former Whanganui theatre personalities, David Charteris and Linda Kerfoot, played parts in the Howick Little Theatre's New Zealand premiere of The Viewing Room.

I'm sure our play reading group will enjoy reading this play in the future and will recommend it for production. It really is a very witty play.