Backstage:Review - Astroman

Astroman. Presented by The Court Theatre. 27 October-10 November. Written by Albert Belz. Directed by Nancy Brunning. Reviewed by Sophie Ricketts, Backstage Christchurch.

The year is 1984, the place is Whakatāne, and for a teenager on the fringe there is nowhere cooler to be than the Astrocade Game Parlour. So this is where you’ll find Hemi “Jimmy” Te Rehua; he’s not popular, he’s not tough, and his twin brother Sonny is the one with all the footy skills. But inside the Astrocade Jimmy feels safe: for a boy who thinks in numbers and patterns the familiarity of the video games provides ample opportunity to get the high score and become immortalised with initials on top of the scoreboard.

Tola Newbery was utterly delightful as the cheeky, clever, and enthusiastic Jimmy. His abilities to transform his physicality and speech patterns made him utterly believable as a young man on the brink of greatness, but too naive to really recognise it. As his twin brother Sonny Te Rehua, Scotty Cotter was just as believable as a fun loving 14-year-old and his character provided lovely balance to Jimmy’s rip-shit-and-bust approach. Tom Eason was a standout as Mick Jones, the angry young pakeha with nowhere to channel his rage other than at the Te Rehua boys, and Mr Macrae’s Astrocade; his tough actions and demeanour were a lovely front for someone more vulnerable who was surprisingly light on feet. And in the pivotal role of Mr. Macrae, Matt Chamberlain was the steadfast adult influence everyone needed - not just Jimmy. The three female characters provided great colour and depth to the story, but ultimately this was a boy’s world and they took on secondary roles compared to those of the males.

It is always a joy to see New Zealand stories represented on our local stages, and this is peppered with enough nostalgic references to make even the most cynical audience member chortle from their seat. Playwright Albert Belz said he wanted to write a love letter to the 1980s and Astroman was the result; the tone of the play and the arc of the story prove just how deep that love is.

The use of Jimmy’s monologues addressed to the audience by breaking the fourth wall kept us right inside the story, and the technical elements ensured we were seeing things and feeling things just as Jimmy was. Both the lighting and set were a wonderful combination of minimalistic and futuristic, large panels sliding across the stage to portray all of the different locations within the story with flexibility and flair. I particularly liked that the actors were the ones to move the panels, thereby eliminating the need for any crew members on stage and also maintaining connection with the action of each scene. The combination of fantasy and reality in this production is enhanced by the terrific technical design, and I really loved each of the sequences where we were made to feel like we were all inside the arcade game being played. 

Unfortunately, I felt the first half was too long, and by contrast the second half felt unnecessarily short. The interval seemed to be oddly placed, especially since both my companion and I felt there were three other more logical points in the action to place the break. I also would have loved to see, or hear, more about Jimmy’s dad. I found it genuinely surprising that he couldn’t find a job in Whakatāne, and kept wondering for the first half of the show if a big secret was going to be revealed in the second half to catch us all by surprise. In the end the only surprise to me was that his character never set foot on stage. But I guess that’s the thing about kids: their memories become clouded, their attention spans wane. And this show keeps its star character at the heart of the story and the structure; when that character is fourteen things are going to be processed differently than if he was a grown man. 

I found certain moments reminiscent of two other plays I’ve seen at The Court Theatre in the last year: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime sprang to mind for the similarities in how the central character is also a child and we experience things with him and at his pace; and I also found myself drawing comparisons to The Biggest for the way the topic of whānau was handled, and for portraying so eloquently a middle aged man who struggles to express himself to others. I love that the programming at The Court is finding opportunities to show us stories that go beyond the tip of the iceberg, while still keeping some ties with our own communities.

This play pays tribute to the universal themes of family and what it means to be part of a whānau, even when that is not necessarily the “perfect” nuclear structure portrayed in movies and on TV. I can’t think of a single person, whether a kid now or a kid at heart, who doesn’t benefit from seeing and hearing that message. So thank you Court Theatre, thank you Albert Belz and director Nancy Brunning, and thank you Whakatāne for providing the inspiration for one of our own stories to come to the fore.