By - 3 Mar 2011
"The latest piece of youth-oriented theatre from Massive Company adopts the admirably egalitarian but dramatically unsatisfying strategy of giving what amounts to a lead role to each member of the 14 person cast."
By Paul Simei-Barton
Read this reivew on NZHerald.co.nz
"The result is likely to test audience
attentiveness as no less than five parallel narratives, each with
its own back-story, stretch out over a show time that comes close
to three hours with interval included.
The drama unfolds in separate houses which are locked down due
to an armed hostage taking incident. In one house a crew of Samoan
painters unravel complex paternity issues while dealing with the
spirit of a dead relative.
Elsewhere three sisters are struggling to lift a curse that
stems from a history of child abuse and a distraught sister is
coming to terms with memories of her pop star brother
In a cyclical rhythm the drama switches between the competing
story-lines as the actors slowly tease out traumatic incidents from
their family histories. Uncovering the past sets off all kinds of
personal conflict and the rises in emotionally intensity can be
charted by increasingly frequent use of the f-word.
Most of the dramatic action comes to us as reported speech and the
serial conversations have a rather static quality as each story is
locked into a segmented compartment of Sean Coyle's naturalistic
set design.
However British based writer Lennie James creates some arresting
dialogue that neatly slips from street level vernacular to powerful
poetic metaphor and the production is certainly not without its
moments of magic.
There is refreshingly light touch in the treatment of cultural
identity issues with Fasitua Amosa's amusing explanation of why he
hates eating taro and some wickedly sharp comic timing from Joe
Folau.
Bree Peters displays a sweet singing voice with a memorable
version of Bob Dylan's Make You Feel My Love and Scott
Cotter provides a pivot for the swirling drama with his wonderfully
deranged webcam blogs on the state of the world and his fractured
psyche.
The most compelling dramatic moment comes from Loretta Aukuso in
the role of a school girl who has forgotten how to pray but somehow
manages to blurt out a hauntingly intense plea that her mother
might be delivered from the hands of her abusive husband."
*Havoc in the Garden runs until March 6 at
the Herald Theatre. It then runs at Mangere Arts Centre from 9-12
March, and The Pumphouse, Takapuna, 16-26 March.