My Fringe Bits

The Frogs Under the Waterfront
2-7 & 16-21 February

We mill around outside Mac’s Brewery on a fine summer’s day – it’s so tempting to give in to a Sassy Red, but I am here for the theatre. Upstairs past the brewery itself – those hops are calling to me – we are given a safety briefing and a smelly lifejacket. Our safety comes first, apparently, which is nice to know.

Back down to the waterfront where we sit on wooden steps and squint into the sun as Simon Smith struts his stuff as Dionysus. He is excellent in a Hugh-Laurie-as-foppish-Prince-Regent-in-Blackadder-the-Third sort of way. This similarity has actually been pointed out in almost every review I’ve read of this play, including one by John Smythe, so it must be true.

Smith has a lion skin draped around his shoulders as he pretends to be his half-brother, Heracles. This enables him to engage in a ‘dramatic pause’ when Heracles (William Arthur McDougall) actually turns up Heracles who is far bigger, gruffer and hirsute. It’s funny and ridiculous while engaging and Smith appeals directly to the audience, while alternately abusing and ignoring his slave, Xanthias (Michael Ness) – a herald of things to come.

A gaggle of schoolgirls perch around the perimeter of the set, dangling their legs above the water and admonishing others to be quiet so they can eavesdrop on proceedings – teenagers actually blagging their way in? That’s not like your usual dramatic performance. ‘Frogs’ begin ‘ribbitting’ their way around the edges of the audience before diving into the water in coloured wetsuits. Again, somewhat out of the ordinary.

We get into pedal boats to be ferried across the water, under evil-smelling piles covered in crusty mussels and curious slime. The leader of this flotilla is Amalia Calder as a sort of ferrywoman welcoming us aboard in imitation Cockney. We were given pebbles at our briefing with which I suppose we are meant to pay for our passage, but no one collects them.

We are all hooked up together and the croaking amphibians haul and guide us to our destination – a beach area underneath Circa. It’s a strange, damp atmosphere lit with flaming torches, and the underworld has a new home. Dionysus is still pretending to be Heracles but is alarmed when his reception isn’t quite as planned. Pluto (Matt Clayton) threatens to torment him, so he swaps his lion skin with Xanthias, who is warmly received by a comely maid (Lucy Edwards) so Dionysus demands his fake identity back.

There’s a lot of flailing about in the water, deliberately drenching the spectators – we were warned not to wear nice clothes. Songs and poetry abound and Abacus (Scott Ransom) is as confused as to who is whom, so he ‘tortures’ them to find the truth – one is a God and they don’t feel pain apparently. Dionysus reigns and is required to judge the poetry competition between Aeschylus (Rob Hickey) and Euripides (Luke Hawker).

We are ferried about to the next act where Aeschylus sits suspended above the water in a Lazyboy sipping whisky and discoursing on theatre and the nature of verse. Meanwhile Euripides hurls himself about in a safety net and wails Coldplay and U2 lyrics as modern variations on poetry. These are scoffed at and rejected – there was a time when art was limited to those that could – now everybody’s at it, and it’s all Euripides’ fault apparently.

It’s fun; it’s irreverent and it’s jolly good theatre. At the Fringe awards, it won Best Outdoor, and was a finalist in the Most Original Concept and Best of the Fringe categories. As Lynn Freeman wrote in her review, ‘If any show epitomizes the best of a Fringe festival, it's Frogs.’ She’s right.

Read other reviews of Frogs

Read my reviews of other plays I’ve seen at The Fringe:

The Mountain

Keep it Rural

tick, tick...boom!

Wellington Summer Festivals - Something for Everyone

There's always something going on in Wellington, and that's why I like living here.

We've just had the Sevens and there is cricket coming up. The fact that sailboats are constantly whizzing about on the water suggests that there are regattas and whatnot occurring for the boatie folk. Events are planned or have been raced for swimming, dragon boating, running and 5-a-side football.

Circus artists are performing on the wharf and the Cuba Street Carnival is on this weekend. There are outdoor film screenings, Shakespeare productions and music festivals. Recently we have had concerts in the park form a variety of artists, the One Love concert, featuriung dub, roots and reggae, and even some decent acts - Fur Patrol and David Byrne among them. In the coming weeks saxophones and double basses will abound in the Jazz Festival.

Festival is the word of the summer with one for the Chinese New Year, a Pasifikia one, and a beer festival in Waitangi Park coming up in a couple of weeks. Touring exhibitions include one of Leonardo da Vinci's more imaginative creations, and the Boston exhibition of Monet and the Impressionists at Te Papa.

Amidst all this is the Fringe Festival. I am trying to get to some shows - so far I have seen two (both of which I have thoroughly enjoyed) with more scheduled for next week. I hope to write reviews of them, but in the meantime here's my review of The Mountain which was published on Lumiere.

Wellington is a wonderfully compact little city (little more than a town really) and it's pretty easy to get to any of these events. It markets itself as the 'culture capital' and this summer it has certainly showcased its assets. From ballet dancing to Billy Connolly, there has been something for everyone. And there's plenty more where that came from.