Tryst: a series of three short plays

MEDIA RELEASE

30 September 2008

Tryst: a series of three short plays

Early in October three talented Victoria University directing students will take you on a surreal exploration of identity, self, and lust at its most primal. Tryst is a series of three short plays that meet each other thematically to explore basic human connections.

The fourth and final installment from Victoria University’s directing course for 2008, Tryst marks the directorial debut for these students and the culmination of three years’ study.

Tryst’s three plays will rendezvous back to back in Victoria’s Studio 77, providing a diverse and fast-paced evening of theatre.

Terminating or Sonnet LXXV, or Lass meine Schmerzen nicht veloren sein, or Ambivalence
Written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner, this short play with a long title, usually just called Terminating, is based on Shakespeare’s 75th sonnet. Like the sonnet, which begins “So are you to my thoughts as food to life”, Kushner’s play considers loving and not loving, lust and repulsion.
Directed by Charlotte Bradley this production, a Wellington premiere, sees a group of young and talented actors make Kushner’s lyrical language sing; engaging their bodies and their brains to produce an intelligent, yet unpretentious, look at the complications of the heart, and of the crotch.

The Successful Life of Three – A Skit for Vaudeville
This award-winning play from Cuban-born Maria Irene Fornes is an engaging invitation into the bizarre lives of He, She and Three. Playing off the traditions of vaudeville and silent movies, this play explores universal questions: "Who am I?; Who are you?; Why are you so annoying?; and What am I doing in this relationship?!?”
Of her production, director Tamsin Dashfield says: “More truthful than reality, this play promises to challenge the myths of our time and delight the audience”.

Salve Regina
From New Zealand’s own Edward Bowman comes this dark play that inhabits a post-apocalyptic world and deals with humanity’s downfall. Exploring themes of savagery, sex, gender, power and control, it paints a shocking portrait of mankind’s capacity to give up anything to reproduce.
Director Sam Smith’s production of Salve Regina is a highly stylised performance that blends conventions of Commedia dell’Arte, Absurdism and Elizabethan theatre to create a fresh and engaging production, one that Smith suggests “inhabits the realm of the grotesque”.

The experience of directing in this course is summed up by Dashfield: “This process has been one of discovery – about theatre, about the play, the cast, the collaborators, and most of all about myself”.

What: Tryst; a series of three short plays
Where: Studio 77, 77 Fairlie Terrace, Kelburn (Gate 10 of Victoria University)
When: 7pm, Wednesday 8 to Saturday 11 October
Our Fee: $12 waged/ $8 unwaged
To Book: email theatre@vuw.ac.nz or phone 463 5359

ENDS

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