Empty Pleasures

MEDIA RELEASE

3 September 2008
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Empty Pleasures

“In all the human race not one trace left of my dream”

From a shared theme of unfulfilled dreams comes a season of three 30-minute Empty Pleasures.

Young and talented Victoria University student directors will present three plays in the latest season of work to emerge from the 300-level directing course.

Get in line for the celebrations at the bank office, then wander through the eternal void, and wind up at a neglected bar, in an evening where vivacious comedy displays the poignant parodies of human life.

The Festivities
A menacing undertone emerges in this delightful and seemingly light-hearted play by Anton Chekhov. The Chairman of the Board of Directors is set to celebrate his bank’s anniversary and his own promotion, in peace; enter two feisty women! The resulting chaos caused by “filling the bank with petticoats” exposes the power struggle of the sexes.

“This production deals with a time when women’s place in society was a fight for control,” says director Bex Weatherhead. “I want to explore this relationship between man and woman onstage.”

Seven Doors
Fourteen characters emerge from seven doors into or out of a world completely unknown, yet strangely familiar to the audience.

Director Fiona McNamara has chosen five scenes in translation from this dark German satire by Botho Strauss, which muses the essence of mankind and the place of the individual in the universe.

Happy Birthday Mister Deka D
“The door is always open…sometimes it’s always shut” in a decrepit bar watched over by the inscrutably grinning Mister Deka D. Through this door Trisk has come to reconnect with Lika, a woman for whom time has been left behind.

With masterful precision Nigerian-born playwright Biyi Bandele has captured an exquisite moment of unspoken emotions and half-finished conversations, and now director Joel Baxendale joyfully assembles its New Zealand premier.

What: Empty Pleasures, a season of three short plays
When: Wednesday 17 – Saturday 20 September, 6.45pm arrival for a 7pm show
Where: Studio 77, 77 Fairlie Terrace, Kelburn (Gate 10 of Victoria University)
Tickets: $12 waged and $8 unwaged
To book: Phone 04 463 5359 or Email theatre@vuw.ac.nz

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