Award winning play Passionfruits bringing magic to Kirikiriroa.

By Paul Michael

An award winning play by local writer Liam Hinton will be performed for the first time in Kirikiriroa Hamilton this August.

The drama, Passionfruits won the Playmarket Adams NZ Play Award for best play earlier this year and a full production of the work is being staged by One Question Theatre at the Meteor Theatre from August 20 -22.

Liam Hinton – Bard/Photo by Paul J Michael

Described as a searing family drama, there are themes based around concepts of time and being overwhelmed by historical events.

Hinton who has lived in Hamilton since 2015 feels the time is right for Hamilton to be used as a dramatic setting, “The perception that nothing happens here makes it slightly ripe dramatically.”

The inspiration comes from Hinton’s own experiences and his deep reading of major family dramas like the plays of Anton Chekov, J B Priestley’s Time and the Conways and even the Sopranos TV series.

Hinton had a pivotal theatre moment in his teenage years seeing a play at the Basement Theatre in Auckland. “There was a moment where they pulled a sheet over the audience from behind and they blasted the sheet with fans. So, we were just under this sheeted dome and this tiny theatre felt enormous, like I was in a desert somewhere.”

A moment of magic where Hinton realised you could produce something magnificent with very little resource.

One Question Theatre is a group of three people, Liam Hinton and Ruby Brett based in Frankton and Jack Knowles based in Dunedin.

Production for Passionfruits has been helped with funding from Creative Communities Scheme, a scheme that Hinton believes is of great necessity to artists.

The show has also received sponsorship from Kitchen INC, a kitchen design company located in Frankton who are making a full kitchen set for the second half, free of charge.

Tracey Slaughter, an academic, well-known poet, and Hinton’s mother, is part of a large cast. She and Hinton are working on a screenplay together based on her novella, The Longest Drink in Town with funding coming from the NZ Film Commission.

Hinton has a desire to become a film writer and director in the future and Passionfruits is another step along the way, for an artist in progress.