A horse story: BLINKERS and SPURS
Media Release
June 29 2008
A horse story: BLINKERS
and SPURS
A rock'n'roll romance and a way out Western
When Blinkers was first performed during this
year's Wellington Fringe
Festival it caused a sensation -
immediately being hailed by audiences
and critics as the
most irresistible devised work to emerge in years.
After
sell-out seasons in Wellington, Blenheim and Palmerston
North,
this delightfully odd love story reinvents itself
for Auckland
audiences as A Horse Story: Blinkers and
Spurs, at The Basement
(ex-Silo) from July 23 – August
1.
A high-paced two-hander, A Horse Story is a theatrical
cocktail of
doormats and gun-slingers. It holds within it
Blinkers and Spurs - two
funny and moving stories that
follow the first time encounters of four
extraordinary
strangers. In Blinkers, the walls are brought
crashing
down between two seemingly disparate neighbours:
Amy, a slovenly punk
rock fantasist and Monty, a
fastidious librarian obsessed with horses.
In Spurs the
audience is taken to the Wild West of America, where
a
Cowboy on the run has a strange and fateful exchange
with a mysterious
Indian.
Together, the shows celebrate
the joys and foibles of human nature,
and ask: why is it
so difficult to communicate over the
smallest
distances?
Written and performed by Natalie
Medlock (Arcadia) and Dan Musgrove
(Angels in America,
Antigone), A Horse Story: Blinkers and Spurs is an
astute
observation on the quirks of human nature, exploring the
beauty
that is found in the mundane, and everyday
oddities of life.
"It's the simplicity of horses and the
driving rhythms of Patti Smith
crammed into the tiniest
apartments" says Medlock. "It's ridiculous
and
perfect!"
Musgrove agrees, "It's a peep hole into our
living room
idiosyncrasies. A microscope for the
sweet-absurd irony of our
everyday existence. We are
strange lonely creatures and we need other
strange lonely
creatures to survive - so let's celebrate that
and
laugh!"
Blinkers is directed by acclaimed actress
and director Sophie Roberts
(Angels in America, A
Streetcar Named Desire, Antigone). Spurs is
directed by
the incomparable new theatre talent, Laurel
Devenie
(Othello, The Graduate, The
Tempest).
"Original, creative and economically written, it
is both funny and
tension filled…One of the stand out
Fringe Festival shows." - Ewen
Coleman, Dominion
Post.
"On the one hand Blinkers is way-out wacky, on the
other it's awfully
familiar. Well worth seeing" - John
Smythe, Theatreview.
"It's an irresistible devised
work…humour and pathos in perfect harmony."
- Lynn
Freeman, Capital Times.
A Horse Story premieres at The
Basement for a strictly limited season
before touring to
the Melbourne Fringe Festival in August.
- Ends –