Acclaimed play “Station to Station” comes to Nelson

Acclaimed play “Station to Station” comes to Nelson

Shortland Street’s Dr Chris Warner is more than just a pretty face and a stethoscope!

Michael Galvin who plays the Street’s ‘Dr Love’ is also a Bruce Mason Award winning playwright and is bringing his latest show, the darkly funny ‘Station to Station’ to Nelson in September, along with a stellar cast that includes former Shortland Streeter Donogh Rees (Nurse Judy Brownlee), Karl Drinkwater (Spartacus, The Market) and Outrageous Fortune star Antonia Prebble (Loretta West).

Directed by Cameron Rhodes and featuring original music by Geoff Maddock, the songwriting talent behind Goldenhorse, ‘Station to Station’ wowed audiences and critics when it premiered in Auckland in 2009. It will be the first of Galvin’s four plays to be toured to the South Island.

“I was so pleased with what we achieved with the Auckland season of ‘Station to Station’ that I've always felt it deserved to go further,” he says. “On a personal level, it’s also a great chance to visit some of my favourite New Zealand centres, something that is a rare pleasure given my commitments at Shortland Street.”

Praised for its “thriller-like verve” (NZ Herald) and “[clever balance of] drama, humour and shrewd insights into contemporary society” (National Business Review), ‘Station to Station’ tells the story of a charismatic television presenter turned religious zealot (Galvin), and his beautiful sidekick (Prebble), who take a mother (Rees) and son on a rollercoaster ride from Kiwi suburbia to Jerusalem. Caught in a thrilling, dream-like journey, the foursome negotiate a world in which nothing is quite what it seems - and the most innocent actions can have explosive consequences.

At the heart of Galvin’s play is the premise that life cannot be squeezed in to a set of rules, religious, cultural or otherwise, without harm being done. International events collide with personal passions, as the group is caught in an rapidly unfolding nightmare of their own making, like characters trapped in a story, desperate to believe in a happy ending.
“The play is a unique beast - combining love, death, and the End of The World - but at its heart is a fast paced story driven along by impassioned, interesting characters,” Galvin explains. “Ultimately, this is what people want to see on stage; whether it's in Auckland or Nelson - people love to see great stories well told.”

Galvin, who was brought up a Catholic, draws parallels between the characters’ journey and the Stations of the Cross, a motif he ‘stole’ from David Bowie; ‘like any idea of value in my life’.

He relates reading an interview with Bowie where the interviewer asked him about the title of his album Station to Station, assuming it was a reference to Bowie’s then transient lifestyle: “Bowie replied ‘Actually, it’s about the Stations of the Cross’. So that’s one ingredient in the play,” he says.

‘Station to Station’ is Galvin’s third full-length work for the stage. His second play, The Ocean Star, had a successful 2006 season produced by the Auckland Theatre Company, who were involved in the development of ‘Station to Station’; and won Galvin the prestigious Bruce Mason Award. He recently finished a fourth play, War Hero, based on the life of Archibald Baxter, father of James K Baxter and a conscientious objector in WWI.

The ‘Station to Station’ tour is being presented by the Top of the South Arts Touring Consortium supported by the Regional Arts Presenter fund set up by Creative New Zealand in 2010 to enable regional venues to tour New Zealand work.

‘Station to Station’ is produced by Passenger, a partnership between Rachel Lorimer and Felicity Letcher. It premiered in Auckland in 2009 in association with Stamp at The Edge.

“Station to Station’ is on at the Theatre Royal on Monday & Tuesday, September 12 & 13 at 730pm. Tickets at Everyman Records: www.everyman.co.nz.

ENDS

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