One Question Theatre Get Up-close-and-personal With Their Production Of Closer

After their acclaimed production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit and their adaptation of Tracey Slaughter’s novella The Longest Drink in Town (which recently received seed funding from the New Zealand Writers Guild for a potential screen adaptation), One Question Theatre take yet another daring theatrical step forward with their production of the acclaimed Closer by Patrick Marber.

Set in London in the early 2000s, failed novelist Dan, photographer Anna, sex worker Alice, and dermatologist Larry become intimately bound in one another’s flesh, playing a brutal game of love, lust, and deceit. “I first saw Closer when I was sixteen and was awe-struck”, says co-founder of One Question and co-director Liam Hinton. “I fell in love with its intensity and its intimacy. It’s a stunning and visceral portrait of desire, and the regret that often accompanies the realisation of desire.”

The play is most well-known for its 2006 film adaptation directed by Mike Nichols and starring Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, and Jude Law. Says Hinton, “Nichol’s film is an excellent adaptation, but in moving the play to a medium with different constraints I feel some element of depth is lost or changed. Upon reading the play script I became fascinated with the previously unseen small angles of these characters and the shadows they cast off. “

In this production, local performers Ajsha Treblico, Hannah-Rose Cook and Benny Marama take on the roles of Anna, Alice, and Larry respectively.

And Hinton and fellow co-founder of One Question Theatre Jack Knowles aren’t only co-directing: they also share the role of novelist and obituarist Dan, performing on alternating nights. Of the role share, Hinton says, “Sharing the role with Jack has been a rewarding experience. Dan’s psychology remains consistent between the two of us but is expressed differently given how differently we are physically. My hope is the other actors are allowed to remain alive and alert and are given different energies to respond to.”

Says Hinton, “Jack and I are thrilled with the talent of this cast and crew, and we cannot wait to see them hit the stage.”

Closer by Patrick Marber opens at The Meteor Theatre on July 19 and runs to July 22. Tickets are available at themeteor.co.nz.

R16 – Contains coarse language and sexual references.

One Question’s season of Patrick Marber’s Closer is a community theatre production by special arrangement with Samuel French Lts, and The Play Bureau.

DETAILS

WHAT: Closer by Patrick Marber

WHEN: July 19-22

TIME: 7:00pm

PRICE: GA $25 / Conc. $20
TICKETS FROM https://themeteor.co.nz/event/closer/

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