Reviewed by Malcolm Calder
Mike and Virginia by Kathryn Burnett and Nick Ward
Tadpole Theatre Company
Pumphouse Theatre, Takapuna
Directed by Simon Praast
Lighting/Sound – Gareth/Geoff Evans
Costumes – Robyn Fleming
With : Andrew Grainger and Laura Hill, and Muna Arbon, Stephen Papps and Jodie Rimmer.
Thursday 31 August 2023 (until Sept 10)
Reviewed by Malcolm Calder
Last year Takapuna’s Tadpole Theatre tackled Kathryn Burnett’s new work The Campervan. I thought it perfectly suited to Tadpole’s demographic, had some great localised comedy and was pretty well-balanced. Their Relatively Speaking earlier this year was also a pretty competent handling of the Alan Ayckbourn classic.
But I found Mike and Virginia an odd choice for Tadpole.
Using the simple and well-hyphened rom-com plot line of boy-meets-girl-meets-boy-meets-girl-again, its demands on an audience are low. Both playwrights are perhaps better known as screenwriters and this is reflected in a stage production that some might see as better suited to celluloid.
Amiable academic Mike (Andrew Grainger), fresh from a collapsed relationship, falls for Virginia (Laura Hill) a fiercely independent-minded academic. Power duly swings back and forth, interspersed with one-liners that generated appropriate laughter from the opening night audience. Some of the lines bite. Some don’t. And some are genuinely funny.
The two discover they both specialise in film analysis – albeit of different genres – and that sets up a nice push-pull between them that then occurs over maybe 40 or more different and very rapid scenes – rather like a film. Some are very brief indeed. Just as I was beginning to grasp a point, I was disconcerted when it jumped quickly to the next scene before I could digest the last. There is no set – only a couple of strategically-used chairs – and many scene-changes are simply another lighting cue. The entire piece is played against blacks. Yes, I wondered about the possible irony of this.
I also felt a little sorry for director Simon Praast and his cast as the material came up so quickly any opportunity to connect with each other was fleeting. They are all competent and capable actors although, oddly enough, each has a strong film background. Hmmmmm, now there’s a thought.
Grainger gives his usual highly capable performance, developing Mike to reveal some sensitivity though I wondered if he may have been perhaps little too amiable especially earlier on. Hill’s Virginia was far more (and appropriately) glacial. Her icy Virginia fairly spasmed with a fiery, glacial intensity. There were a couple of instances where a flash of magic occurred between them. I wanted more but the scenes were a bit brief.
However, it was the supporting cast of Mike and Virginia that had some of the best opportunities even though these existing mainly as foils or counterfoils for many of the one-liners. Jodie Rimmer created a genuine frenetic wannabe Sally – I’m sure I have seen her as a be-costumed fairy in a shopping centre recently. While Stephen Papps came to own the dry observation as the droll Harry – I could swear he was fixing my neighbour’s plumbing the other day, fag and all.
But Mike and Virginia is not a film. It is theatre. Many will enjoy this rollicking rom-com, but be mindful that the two genres are distinctively and deliberately different.
New Zealand Arts Review 