Award winning play Passionfruits bringing magic to Kirikiriroa.
By Paul Michael
One Question Theatre will be performing their award-winning play Passionfruits at the Meteor Theatre in Kirikiriroa/Hamilton from August 20 -22.
The drama; which is the second play written by Liam Hinton, won the Adam NZ Play Award for best play earlier this year.
This award is given by Playmarket, a non-profit org founded in 1973 to encourage professional production of NZ plays, starting out in a toilet block in Wellington central.
Hinton who has lived in Hamilton since 2015 feels the time is right for Kirikiriroa /Hamilton to be used as a dramatic setting, “The perception that nothing happens here makes it slightly ripe dramatically.”
Described as a searing family drama, there are themes based around concepts of time and being overwhelmed by historical events.
The inspiration comes from Hinton’s own experiences and the deep reading of major family dramas. The plays of Anton Chekov, J B Priestley’s Time and the Conways and the Sopranos TV series are mentioned.
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.
One Question Theatre is a group of three people, Liam Hinton and Ruby Brett based in Frankton and Jack Knowles based in Dunedin.
Tracey Slaughter, an academic, well-known poet (Hinton’s Mother) is part of a large cast. She and Hinton are working on a screenplay together based on Slaughter’s novella, The Longest Drink in Town with funding coming from the NZ Film Commission.
Hinton mentions a pivotal theatre moment from his teenage years at the Basement Theatre in Auckland. “I think it was called Uncle Minotaur. 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.
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.
Passionfruits – August 20 -22, tickets available from the Meteor Theatre
