Play a lot of hard work

Last updated 13:37 19/08/2010

MARTIN DE RUYTER

TAKE A TRIP: Two of the Four Flat Whites, Ngaire Warner and Troy Warring.

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Naomi Arnold heads behind the scenes of Theatre Alive's upcoming production, the rollicking Roger Hall play Four Flat Whites in Italy.

There's an old rolling ladder stuffed between buildings at the back of the Theatre Royal, and someone is frantically unscrewing its wheels when the Nelson Mail arrives to find out more about Theatre Alive's new play, opening at the Theatre Royal next Friday.

He looks like a workman. But he turns out to be Troy Warring, one of the leads in Roger Hall's Four Flat Whites in Italy, directed by Hugh Neill.

"The wheels will be for the gondola," explains Warring. He's building the sets as well.

Such versatility is characteristic of the Nelson amateur theatre company's do-it-yourself ethic. Warring has been working with Theatre Alive for a couple of years now and says he's always either backstage, stage-managing, building sets or, occasionally, acting.

He recently played Chief Bromden in July's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

"We're a little non-profit organisation so we all chip in together and do the best we can," Warring says. "We all pull together and put these productions on. They're not easy. There's bloody months of work that goes into it and nobody has any idea."

Warring jokes that he doesn't know why he does it. "It's 'cause I don't have a life. But it's fun, we have a laugh."

As all-consuming as the work is, there's nothing nicer than having somebody come up and say "that was a fantastic play".

Neill says that when it's a Roger Hall play, you know it's going to be a good night out. The prolific, bitingly funny playwright has been called one of the best of his generation and Four Flat Whites in Italy is Hall's most successful box-office hit.

Warring calls it "typical Hall".

"It's light, it's breezy, it's funny. It's like a rollercoaster; it'll pick you up and drop you down. It's not too hard-going, it's easy to swallow and it's fun to be in. I haven't laughed so much as I have done in rehearsal, so hopefully we can put that out into the audience. Other plays are not like that."

Neill says he has made good use of the "fabulously restored" Theatre Royal's flash new technology, which will see sets whizzing in and out and images of Italy projected on to the back of the stage. "It's a wonderful set, I'm very excited about it.

"We get three times the numbers we had while this place was closed. The audiences are coming."

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He says the play is going to be "a lot of fun", but with a serious subtext. "That's Roger Hall's trait. Most are humorous but underneath there's the pathos."

In the play, retired librarians Adrian (Andrew Challis in his last Nelson performance) and Alison (Susanne Bolger) have a long-awaited trip to Italy planned with good friends, but they have to drop out at the last minute. Faced with cancellation, the uptight pair choose the lesser of two evils: heading off instead with abrasive neighbours Harry (Troy Warring) and his trophy wife Judy (Ngaire Warner).

The action travels from New Zealand, through Venice, Rome, and a rented villa in Tuscany. Adrian drives the show, engaging with the audience and talking to the other characters, narrating in past tense what has happened and then letting it unfold onstage. Sophie Ricketts and Chris Hyman each play multiple, larger-than-life Italian characters – a centurion, a gondolier, a security guard, and the count and countess who own the villa the couples rent.

Neill says that, as director, he tries not to interfere too much in the process of transferring Hall's words from the page to the stage. "I just let the words speak for themselves and see where the actors take it. I just tweak as necessary, and if it's well-written it's all there."

And because it's Roger Hall, it will be.