The Boy and the Bicycle
By Joseph Harper
Production Two of the Tiny Spectacle/Shitty Lyricism Season
Produced, Designed and Directed by Joseph Harper & Chris Stratton
Music and Sound by Tom Harper
Drumming by Virginia Frankovich/Ruby Reihana Wilson
‘Cello by Chris Stratton
Operated by Ruby Reihana Wilson and Chris Stratton
The Basement (Studio), Lower Greys Ave, Auckland CBD
Koha on departure
11-15 September, 2012
Reviewed on 11 September, 2012
Published at http://www.theatreview.org.nz
Tiny Spectacle/Shitty Lyricism is an evening of two short plays each written and directed by Joseph Harper. Honey comes first and is followed, after a 20 minute interval, by The Boy and the Bicycle. Both shows have been performed before but not in Auckland.
The Boy and the Bicycle is a solo work written and performed by Harper who, with Christopher Stratton, also directed the piece. It’s compelling theatre, raw, angry at times, disquieting yet irresistible
Harper describes The Boy and the Bicycle as being ‘about depression’.
It features, he says, ‘live biking and spider-webs and muddied nostalgia and angst! angst! angst! and cellos and Sir Edmund Hillary’.
Yes, it has all these.
Needless to say, while The Boy and the Bicycle has references to Hillary, the great man doesn’t actually put in an appearance. Even so I feel confident in suggesting that, had Hillary seen the production, he would have considered Harper to have well and truly ‘knocked the bastard off!’
The Boy and the Bicycle is a bit of a climb, make no mistake, but a worthwhile journey as was acknowledged when it won the inaugural Playmarket B4 25 playwrights competition in 2011.
Originally conceived by Harper as a UNITEC graduation piece, The Boy and the Bicycle is ‘a set of abstractions and parables’ that aim to articulate his experiences with mental illness and, in particular, depression. Harper says the play features ‘big black dogs, adolescent misanthropy, outsider cello soundscapes, Sir Ed, post-spectacle ‘lighting’, and a talking bicycle’.
He goes on to say that ‘it’s a pretty subjective kind of thing but intentionally so. Expressionist or something. It’s a black comedy. Or a philosophical tragi-comedy or something. But it’s also helpful and can make you feel good, or like you’re a part of everything. Or at least not alone, y’know’.
He’s pretty much covered everything as anyone who has ever experienced severe depression will agree. It’s all there.
The studio upstairs at the Basement is the perfect venue for this work. It’s the classic ‘70’s black box, unadorned and unpretentious, and houses this dark work splendidly.
The set consists of a centrally placed ladder connected to the walls on either side by a tangled spider’s web of climbing ropes, a racing bike connected to a stand that enables it to be ridden without actually travelling anywhere, a palliasse and sheet on the floor.
A man (Joseph Harper) is attached to the ladder a few steps up. He is lit by a torch that he holds himself. Variously throughout he is self lit by a lamp, lit by torch from the auditorium, lit by conventional lighting or simply working in the dark.
It is clear from what he says that, initially, he cannot move.
He introduces the audience to the idea that he will share three stories – he thinks a lot, you see – and that these narratives will be colonized by people he has met – or perhaps they are simply memories, he’s not sure. Either way he’ll choose the most boring one and that, he says, is the point. His tone is dull to begin with, hesitant, but his voice becomes more authoritative, more performed, as his story progresses.
He tells us about his family, assures us from the saddle of the cycle that he was born on a bike, explains how, introduces us to his Grandfather, explains how Heenan’s Cycles, the first cycle shop in New Zealand and located in Hokitika, is now a WINZ office and how his family links to this.
Then he talks about the family moving to Christchurch, his esteemed grandfather and his childhood.
I zone in because, like Harper, I grew up in Christchurch, felt disconnected, hated school and had few friends. One of Harper’s great gifts is his ability to connect with individuals in his audience – both as dramatist and actor – without losing his connection to the universal. He rattles off a list of classmates and I knew them all – only the names had been changed to protect a different generational passage in time.
‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘Christchurch. Now I understand’.
I had grown up there, hated and feared my teachers, my classmates and my schools. So much so that, when I left school I became a teacher with the sole purpose of ensuring that no student in my care would have the experiences I had.
Ironically, I returned to Christchurch and, after 30 years, returned to teach at my old alma mater, Linwood College. I was gobsmacked to find that nothing had changed in all that time. The school was as hateful as ever and Harper’s personalised experience took me back to my time as a student, to my time as a teacher and to how I felt.
It was a revelation.
Why mention that?
Because good playwrighting touches the soul and Harper has real courage when it comes to publically facing his demons and enabling us, by proxy, to take ours out and have a safe peep at them too before returning them to wherever they usually, safely, reside.
Powerful stuff, without a doubt!
The Boy and the Bicycle work was crafted under the watchful eye of master playwright Gary Henderson (Skin Tight, An Unseasonable Fall Of Snow, Mo & Jess Kill Susie), himself from Canterbury and it shows. The text is tight and angular, lyrical when required, poetic, and rough as guts with the pre-birth journey on the bike being exceptionally well written. While it doesn’t have Henderson all over it, it does share his admirably fearless approach and this I admired very much.
Perhaps my favourite – if favourite is the right word – cameo in the 55 minute traverse of this expansively expressionistic text is the faux duologue between Harper (as himself) and Dog (played by Harper). Lit from below by a single lamp, Harper resembles, in more ways than one, the late Sid Vicious and the spitefulness of the dialogue while seriously upsetting is mitigated by the sheer quality of the acting. Dog is the psycho-sociopath we all fear lies deep within us and with whom Harper has, at times, clearly had an intense relationship.
The Boy and the Bicycle is an extraordinary work performed by an extraordinary young actor but he’s not entirely alone. Virginia Frankovich provides a refined and minimalist percussion and Christopher Stratton affords us a gaunt and unpretentious ‘cello and these facets of the production, while unobtrusive, contribute significantly to its success.
To tell you more would be to go too far because this is such a personal journey for audience and actor that it should really be experienced rather than read about. It’s very fine work written by a real talent and performed by an actor of serious ability. The fact that they are one and the same should give us all hope.
As an evening in the theatre these two works should almost be a ‘must see’. I’d certainly recommend them but with the following slight reservation. There is content in The Boy and the Bicycle that could be triggering for vulnerable folk so use your discretion. Personally, I found the productions affirming and stimulating and of a quality quite rare in that both works are brazenly intellectual, expressionistic, blunt and emotionally rich as well as being splendidly performed.
I can’t wait for Harper and Frankovich’s next outing – hopefully soon.
Admission is by koha as you leave – so take money!
dykiegirl 