'fragilethings' Thea 304 Directing - Season 3

If true love is a perfect union, an inseparable bond, how do people cope when a relationship falls apart?  Or self-destructs in the palm of their hand?  Peoplearefragilethingsyoushouldknowthatbynowbe
carefulwhatyouputthemthrough explores the dying sparks of collapsing relationships, each offering a different take on how people sift through the ashes left behind by the bright light of burnt love, and try to keep it burning. 

The season is composed of three 30 minutes plays, Ashes to Ashes (Harold Pinter), Three More Sleepless Nights (Caryl Churchill), and Savage/Love (Sam Shepard & Joseph Chaikin), all with the common theme of love and relationships, featuring the acting talents of: Chapman Tripp winners Eli Kent (Outstanding New Playwright 2008) and Erin Banks (Most Promising Female Newcomer 2005), and Ralph McCubbin-Howell (Director of recent success Vienna verona: Romeo & Juliet), among other local talent.

Fragilethings runs from the 23-26th of September at Studio 77, which can be found at 77 Fairlie Terrace.  The tickets are $8 waged and $15 unwaged, and the show opens at 7pm.  Bookings can be made via email through theatre@vuw.ac.nz, or by telephone on (04) 463 4359.

The first third of the evening is supplied by Director Uther Dean, working with recently deceased Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes.  “It is a play about love, war and the cruelties we commit without thinking.”  Says Dean, “It is steeped in dream logic, awkward silences and more dark humour than is usually good for you.”

Three More Sleepless Nights, by Caryl Churchill, will be directed by Hannah Banks, explores the bedroom diplomacy of relationships.  It is a play about three couples - it’s the middle of the night and nobody’s sleeping.  Banks says of the play, “It examines four people and their relationships through their different styles of arguing.  How can we make someone happy and is it possible to change how we live and love?”

Finally, the evening is rounded off by Savage/Love, a play by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin, directed by Paul Waggott.  “The play explores the performative nature of relationships and the fragmentary nature of memory following a journey through love moment to moment.”  Says Waggott of the sparsely styled text, “ It is a personal quest, but one that at times manages to transcend the individual and approach the universal.”

Fragilethings is Season 3 of the Victoria University Theatre Department 304 Directing course.   Twelve students work over the course of a trimester to produce twelve, 30 minute plays, as the culmination of their BA’s in Theatre.  The students aim to produce work of as professional level as possible, representing part of the next generation of New Zealand theatre.