The Local - Mt VictoriaReview: End of Summer Time
Circa Theatre, Thurs 27 March – Sun 13 April
By Sir Roger Hall
Directed by Ross Jolly
Starring Gavin Rutherford
Roger Hall’s latest play End of Summer Time is set squarely in a specific time and place: Auckland, 2019-2023.
Lovable curmudgeon Dickey Hart (played by Gavin Rutherford) is an ageing ex-farmer who has featured in previous Hall comedies. In this play, he has moved to Auckland with his wife Glenda to be closer to the kids and grandkids.
Various Auckland-related jokes and observations occur of course: the traffic, the people, the food.
Old age is another theme, where Hall’s laser eye for detail works well: “I know in old age, marriage is mostly shouting ‘what?’ from another room,” comments Dickey.
Middle class angst is where Hall works best: the petty concerns of the moderately well to do that will strike a chord with many. For example, Dickey gets embroiled in the Machiavellian politics of a body corporate, and is faced with answering Census questions with options for gender he’s never heard of.
All of this could have remained fairly lightweight but then Covid strikes and Dickey faces a new challenge: loneliness.
It’s Hall’s skill as a playwright, and Gavin Rutherford’s wonderful warm stage presence that allows us to navigate this journey with the right amount of sadness and humour.
It’s a one-person monologue that Rutherford plays as an extended chat, with frequent hilarious interactions with the audience.
The direction by Ross Jolly is excellent, making use of a simple apartment set to tell a range of stories.
The technical side is very well done - a set of well-timed PowerPoint slides and unobstructive but effective lighting and music provide the context to support the script, all perfectly delivered.
I sat next to a visitor from Australia who enjoyed the play but said he was struggling a bit to understand some of the Kiwi-isms. It’s true that Roger Hall is supremely good at capturing a particular slice of New Zealand life - and in this case slice of time - and it is deliciously ours.
Just five years on from the start of Covid it already seems a lifetime away and many of us would prefer to forget it.
But this comedy is a worthy record of a time that made an indelible mark on Aotearoa.
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