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7.30 pm nightly
Mon & Thurs 6pm
Sun 14 2pm
Adults |
$25 |
Concession |
$20 |
Students |
$15 |
Children |
$12 |
Groups 10+ |
$20 |
Bookings Open Now !
Synopsis:
A group of female teachers, plus one reluctantly accompanying daughter, embark on a weekend of bushwalking in the mountains to get away from it all!
Torrential rains and a washed out bridge traps them in a hut together for three days. Two days in everything's chummy - sort of like high school camp. Three days in, they're definitely not happy campers.
Will the rain ever stop? Will the resident hut ghost get them in the middle of the night? Will they all get simultaneous PMT and scratch each others eyes out? Or will they find out what true friendship really means?
An insightful situation comedy about truth, consequences and unexpected revelation.
Director's Notes:
Somebody said "Let's go climbing this weekend" and you find yourself stuck in a very basic hut in the mountains with five female school-teachers and a wildly annoying young single mother.
The bulk of Roger Hall's comedy stems from the nature of the beast and this is no exception - the comedy in this case stems from each character's reaction to the ghastly situation and the desire to tell-all as claustrophobia sets in.
The usual WONDERFUL one-liners (and two and three liners) pack into this very funny AND interesting play.
Liz Moody Social Climbers will be very appealing to all audiences and particularly to men! |
Social Climbers -A Glorious Romp
Social Climbers by Roger Hall, directed for Repertory Theatre by Elizabeth Moody, June 6-14. Running time 2 hours 10 minutes with interval. Reviewed by Gus Eliot.
Kiwi trampers are well used to heavy going, but this outfit was a glorious romp from start to finish.
A decade after we chortled over this wickedly funny play, the six assorted women characters seem even more watchable and their lines have lost none of their spark, nor indeed the underlying insights into what makes them/us tick and a wealth of digs at various social issues - notably education since four of the women are from one school staffroom.
Veteran thespian Elizabeth Moody, knows very well how to warm up an audience and give them a tramping escape without all the miseries of actually getting there. Much more fun to sit back in a cosy theatre and relish the stage version, set in a wonderfully realistic hut (design by Brenda Hayes) with a vastly entertaining set of characters dealing with enforced togetherness (a bridge is down).
All six build strong roles from the situation, shaping events and altercations with polished ease. As they link arms for a practice river crossing at the end, the audience is left wanting more - sure pointer to a thoroughly successful production.
The Star/Ashburton Guardian.
Production Team:
Director |
Elizabeth Moody |
Production Manager |
Brenda Hayes |
Stage Manager |
Jean Jackson |
Assist. Stage Manager |
Keegan How |
Set Design |
Brenda Hayes |
Light Design & Operation |
Andy Simmonds |
Wardrobe |
Mandy Adams |
Set Builders |
Mike Wright & Robin Harris |
Painters |
Marion Beattie |
Properties |
Sydney Hogarth |
Liaison |
Blair Kershaw |
Cast:
Susan, Biology Teacher: |
Felicity Watson |
Annie, School Counsellor: |
Catherine McGee |
Kath, History Teacher: |
Erin Callanan |
Emily, English Teacher: |
Erin Harrington |
Maxine, Drama Teacher: |
Deborah Davids |
Sinead, Emily's Daughter & Art Student: |
Candice Egan |
Roger Hall is a master of comedy and in particular Kiwi comedies. He allows us to laugh at ourselves. He is a great observer of people, what makes them tick and what gets their goat. Many of his lines have become Kiwi classics.
The Oxford Companion to NZ Literature says, “while Hall’s plays are funny, their comedy is that of sorrowful resilience, like Chekhov’s, and of serious social criticism”.
It’s interesting that Hall ‘gets us’ so well, because he is an import from the UK. He came here as a young man in 1958.
He says that his desire to write and act was ignited by his father’s talent as an impersonator, frequent family visits to the theatre and his love for post-war radio comedies, such as Hancock’s Half Hour.
Although his plays have a Kiwi flavour the characters and situations are universally recognizable and Middle Age Spread was a hit in the West End.
Glide Time translated well into radio and television drama.
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