Kiss the Fish basks in stream of awards
Kiss the Fish basks in stream of
awards
A play created with the assistance of a University of Auckland academic has received a string of awards at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards.
Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis’s play Kiss the Fish won the Outstanding New New Zealand Play of the Year Award.
Associate Professor Murray Edmund of the School of Humanities in the Faculty of Arts was the dramaturge on the production. A dramaturge is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas.
“It was a real pleasure working on the production. It’s been a lot of hard work and I am thrilled Jacob and Justin received this award,” Associate Professor Edmund says.
Indian Ink Theatre Company, producers and creators of Kiss the Fish, have a Research Partnership with University’s Drama Programmes.
Kiss the Fish is a story of family conflicts and loyalties told through actors, masks, shadows, song and puppets. With actors in traditional Balinese masks, it tells the story of lead character Sidu, who can't wait to escape Karukam Island to be the next Freddie Mercury. Other characters include Sidu’s father Bapa, his sister Lakshmi, his daughter Grace, his wife Jasmine, his betrothed Daisy, Daisy’s mother Kochima, Govind the harbourmaster, Kingsley the entrepreneur, and a fisherman, not to mention a number of blue monkeys.
“We wanted to make a story in which there wasn’t one main character, but the community and the island where they lived, Karukam, would be the main characters.”
The story is about how the community deals with the building of a tourist resort and access to good water.
“It’s a complex story with several strands, romantic, economic and family. We also wanted to use carved wooden Balinese masks.”
Indian Ink always used masks, but this was the first time they used Balinese masks, some of which are traditional, and several were carved specially for Indian Ink by a mask-maker in Bali according to character descriptions provided.
“We spent two years slowly
developing the playing, talking, writing, working with
different actors in workshops, until gradually the story
emerged. As dramaturge I worked closely with Justin, the
director, and Jacob, the senior actor, on the development of
the script.”
As well as taking Outstanding New Play of
the Year, the play also won Best Supporting Actress for
Julia Croft, and Composer of the Year Award for David
Ward.
Also successful at the awards was University MA in Drama graduate Chris Molloy who won the Best New Playwright Award for his play Putorino Hill.
Described as a “part-fairytale, part-thriller,
part-coming of age story, and part-every other genre
imaginable”, Putorino Hill traces the life of an
old man through the complexities of manhood, love and
grief.
ends