I Want to be Happy ~ a theatre review

On the surface, I Want to be Happy is the simple story of a guinea pig and a laboratory researcher.

It’s not, of course, it’s written by Carl Bland so it’s much more.

Paul (Joel Tobeck) is doing ‘research’ on Binka the guinea pig (we don’t find out what this involves) while going through a difficult relationship break up with his partner Sarah who we never meet. Binka the guinea pig (Jennifer Ludlam) is caged and aching for her freedom. They talk, seemingly to each other, but neither hears and the deliciously structured text hangs in the air to be received, and interpreted, by an almost full house enjoying a lovely spring evening at Auckland’s Herald Theatre.

Each and every day, the man and the guinea pig share their hopes and fears, and both just want to be happy again – which implies that they’re not but that they once were. Paul’s certainly not happy and we guess (probably from personal experience) that Sarah is playing ‘the beast with two backs’ away from home but Paul hasn’t quite got to this bit yet.

Maybe we’re wrong, truth is, we just don’t know. The whole evening is like that, so much to know, so much to find out, a wonderfully joyous exercise in anticipation.

The good news is, somehow, we know there is always hope.

Paul tells us ‘we find that, after all these years of talking to each other and not understanding a word, that something has slipped through, something beyond words, something from one heart to another. But how? When everything you’ve known is gone and you’re left with a broken heart? Sometimes the greatest gift you can give the person you love, is to set them free.’

Of course, there are issues with setting Binka free (she’s a cunning wee beast and can chew her way through most things), and the outside world has some serious challenges if you’re smaller than a sand shoe. The bonus for the audience is some very funny scenes that border on traditional pantomime or classic British farce.

Enough about that though, you didn’t hear it from me.

There’s a bittersweet quality throughout the evening, however, that just won’t go away largely because, as the website warns, ‘humour and pathos collide’ much to our delight.

In the case of I Want to be Happy, collide is an understatement.

Perhaps the answer lies in a 7 February 2015 NZ Herald interview where Bland suggests “there’s lots of examples of serious people being funny. The old tragedy, comedy thing. It’s a very fine line. All great comedians have a sadness in them.”

Wise words, and I have to say Ludlam and Tobeck are perfect casting if this is true (and we all know it is).

The writer’s note in the programme cites the opening line of the play and perhaps this gives us another hint as to why a bleak sense of foreboding prevails. The note reads “this morning I woke up and a memory came flooding back. It was heartbeats. Fur. Wet noses. Warm milk. The smell of love. The memory was a happy one. But it made me unhappy.” It goes on to say “the memory of a past love is bittersweet. You know you can never have that moment again. The pain of that loss can stop us from celebrating the beauty of that love. Animals are our guide here. Their ability to live in the present. To endure. Be ever hopeful. To tap into a deep ancestral presence. To teach us. What we thought was lost is not. All the people we love are by our side. The show is dedicated to Peta Rutter.”

Blessings, Carl. Deeply personal.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed Bland’s playwrighting work over the years to hear that I Want to be Happy is not quite as simple as a guinea pig and a researcher talking to each other but not connecting, and that there are more layers to this work than you’ll find on the proverbial onion.

Bland trained at The Chelsea School of Art and The Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He wrote and created his own theatre shows with his late wife, the wonderful Peta Rutter, under the name Nightsong Productions before collaborating with Ben Crowder’s Theatre Stampede.

Like Bland, director Ben Crowder has history, and it’s all outstanding. I’ve borrowed the following from the Nightsong website, but first I’ll come clean and admit that Crowder is a director whose work I truly respect. “He trained at The John Bolton Theatre School in Melbourne and, after graduating, established Theatre Stampede with Vanessa Chapple. Together they created a range of works including The Young Baron, Blossom and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In 2005 Ben began collaborating with Bland and Peta Rutter from Nightsong and together they made Head and 360 – a theatre of recollections.

“Bland and Crowder have continued to work together, officially forming this iteration of Nightsong in 2017. Their collaborations include Te Pō, Spirit House, Mr Red Light and Call it a Night. They are currently developing A Stab in the Dark together. Ben has also worked extensively as a freelance director and creator.”

The website clarifies the kaupapa further by telling us that Bland and Crowther are “risk-takers” whose work “pushes boundaries”.

Who could argue, I Want to be Happy certainly ticks both of those boxes.

The Nightsong website goes on to say “we deliver unique and innovative New Zealand theatre with high production values. Our works mix rich poetic language with music, visual arts, puppetry, illusion, and choreographed movement.”

More boxes ticked, and majestically so.

In conclusion we learn that Bland and Crowder “possess a deep love and passion for the theatre art form and believe that theatre should be a transformative experience” where audiences “at least see the possibility that the world around them is not always as it seems.”

Having just experienced a metaphysical play about a talking guinea pig, I doubt anyone could dispute this claim, certainly not me. I Want to be Happy is a transformative experience that I found a total delight.

I Want to be Happy is also deeply challenging for this reviewer because to talk about the arc of the play is to give too much away – spoiler after spoiler after spoiler in fact – and each unexpected moment is fantastic. Surprise is such a powerful comic tool and there are surprises aplenty in the ninety-minute journey of this production because, in a play about a talking guinea pig, the sky’s the limit, anything goes, and this company makes every post a winner in the madcap race to the end.

If you intend to invest in this excellent piece of work then perhaps stop reading now, because I might just slip up and unintentionally pop in one of these precious treasures that Bland’s plot and charming characters delight in. I may, in fact, have already gone too far.

The whole is a wonderfully complete piece of work with a set to die for (Andrew Foster), fantastical costumes that are jaw-droppingly good (Elizabeth Whiting and Phil Gregory) and an existential ‘look-between-the-lines’ script that cannot be denied. Bland’s writing is ever clever, like a honed scalpel at times, at others as tart as lemon sorbet, and always optimistic. It’s as though Sir Tom Stoppard is in the room, and I love Sir Tom, but Bland is Bland and absolutely the equal, on this night at least, of the great man.

Now if all this isn’t enough for you (and it should be) there’s also the sublime Jennifer Ludlam playing Binka as seriously as though she’s Kate from the Shrew, the always impressive Joel Tobeck channelling his own Malvolio, and Crowder’s outstanding, if always elusive, direction. I’ve been a fan of Crowder, the costume design genius of Elizabeth Whiting, and the compositions of John Gibson seemingly forever. Gibson’s solo piano in I Want to be Happy could hold its own in any piano bar in any major city anywhere in the world. It’s simply stunning. It supports and sustains the action (both inner and outer) and is quite magnificent, while cleverly pretending not to be.

While the publicity is all over social media (great work, Elephant) what it doesn’t tell you is that, while the production is undeniably emotionally moving, it’s also gut-wrenchingly funny. Paul is in the process of breaking up with his Sarah and he’s doing everything predictably wrong. His character arc is so recognisable and so, so funny. Like kids laughing at clowns, we take a bizarre joy from his ignorance and pain. Binka, on the other hand, finds herself happily in the breeding programme – but that’s quite enough about that. Suffice to say none of it ends well, and thereby hangs a very happy tale.

The characters are beautifully drawn but the script for actors, I suspect, could be extremely challenging. Not that’s there’s any evidence of this, and it’s certainly not challenging for the audience, we love it and we get it, but for actors playing characters who seem to be communicating but aren’t, the text provides segues that are hilarious for us but may have been complex to learn.

The quirky love Paul and Binka have for each other – man for guinea pig, guinea pig for man – is at the heart of the work. It’s delicately played, and I find it, personally, moving. Been there, done that, perhaps. It’s also because each of the creatives involved is acutely aware that everything in the work happens on two levels: the obvious – a giant, guinea pig, and a human lab mate – but also the metaphysical, where human relationships are mirrored and sublime metaphors played out in ways that enable the whole experience to be a satisfying, if somewhat bizarre, inter-species philosophy fest.

Quite superb. Quite, quite superb.

Ludlam’s Binka is wonderful. Yes, she creates all the physiological and facial quirks that you might expect a guinea pig to have but, almost against all logic, her idiosyncrasies and her predicament are what makes us fall in love with her. Hers is an intensely physical performance and I admire it hugely. Scuffling around on the floor of the Herald stage presents its own complexities, but for one of our most skilled and experienced performers, Ludlam embodies the character splendidly.

It’s fair to say that we’re all most used to seeing Joel Tobeck on our screens and often in roles of a heroic nature so Paul is quite a major change. There’s not much heroic about Paul as he struggles through the break-up of his relationship making all the standard mistakes, but like Ludlam, we join him in his world and feel deeply for him as he drags himself kicking and screaming (not literally) to a realization that he really must let Sarah go. Tobeck’s versatility is on full show, and it’s admirable in the extreme.

The programme names, one additional actor, Milo Cawthorne, who, until the curtain call, we never really see. Well, we see him, but he’s always completely encased in Elizabeth Whiting‘s incredible costumes – one for MyOne and one for Whistler. Cawthorne’s two characters are polar opposites, and his performance of them is all the more effective because we instantly love one and are terrified of the other. Excellent work all round from Cawthorne who communicates effectively (and manages the challenges presented by his costumes) with real skill.

I’ve long been a fan of the key Nightsong players. Bland is a wonderful writer and Crowder a magnificent director, Whiting’s costumes are always memorable, and Gibson’s music has given me immense pleasure over the years. Ludlam and Tobeck meld seamlessly into the work and deliver Bland’s script through imaginative storytelling and add the inevitable clever physicality that is always a hallmark of Crowders work.

Did I have a good night at the theatre? I certainly did. Nightsong and Auckland Live have found a balance that is quirky and charming and genuinely meaningful. I especially liked the committed maturity brought to the piece by experienced performers in tune with their material and totally on the top of their game. I am reminded every minute it takes the story to unfold, that Ludlam is among our subtlest and most nuanced performers and Tobeck is her equal. I find myself sitting in the comforting dark and cherishing the collective decades of fine work that these artists have given us and the undoubted personal cost involved. I find myself hoping against hope that Nightsong receives the funding and support they so thoroughly deserve and that this leads to the over-full houses that their work truly warrants.

In conclusion, I wish to humbly compliment myself because I believe I have avoided almost all of the spoilers that I so desperately want to talk about. Suffice to say that if you choose to invest your dollars attending I Want to be Happy, you will not be disappointed. There’s so much more to it than I have told you, but my lips are sealed. If its belly laughs you want, or to have your emotions massaged, or even your demons assuaged, you can have it all because I Want to be Happy is the real deal. It’s wonderful theatre, and just right for an early spring evening.

Auckland audiences have another opportunity to enjoy this excellent work before the show travels south and packs into Circa Theatre in Wellington.

Enjoy this taonga, it’s terrific work.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer.