I Want To Be Happy is a play of dark themes and broad humour around the human condition with anthropomorphic animals and their human overlords. That they blend and resemble one another is an Animal Farm story set in a laboratory.
Sex equals politics in human history, and the mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death. At the heart of both of Orwell’s great novels.
This play has been written by Carl Bland, and if both those other stories do not have happy endings, there is a hint of hope in this work as it unfolds.
Directed by the author and Ben Crowder, for Nightsong theatre company.
The set is divided into a split screen. There is an animal observation-cum-prison cell box attached to a bedroom, set up on a table with a chair for a lab technician.
Left of stage, that has been blown up to human scale proportions. It does look Dr Hannibal Lecter’s cell in Silence of the Lambs. It is quite austere and sterile, but that changes with the appearance of a hamster Binka played by Jennifer Ludlam (Shortland Street, Filthy Business, Calendar Girls).
She is wearing a large beige (or taupe) overcoat, and she looks like a hamster as she sniffs and twitches her nose in front of the box. Immediate laughter from the audience, but Binka’s eyes and manner betray an expression of frustration and resignation.
She can convey her happy moments, which are only a memory. She doesn’t hold back with the profanities in reflecting on her lot.
We are introduced to Paul the lab technician overlord, played by Joel Tobeck (Hercules, Doctor Blake Mysteries, Xena Warrior Princess, professional musician).
Paul addresses the little box on the table in front of him. We see the expanded image simultaneously. It becomes a surreal experience of small expanded to large.
This is enhanced in sequences where Binka manages to experience the world outside her box. I noticed late in the play, the distorted mirror effect from the back of her box does make Ludlam appear like a huge rodent.
Paul appears to be a little cold and severe in manner. There is a callous sadistic edge to his mannerism as he portrays the role of a technician.
But his heart is exposed slowly, as he talks to Binka about his relationship with his wife going south. We feel a guilty pleasure that such a cold fish is being tortured this way.
Slowly we come to sympathise with him as we find his heart is deeply wounded. As men in this country who do not confront these traumatic deeply personal experiences easily, it is one of the triumphs of this play that Tobeck brings us through this in a generally understated and nuanced fashion.
He talks to Binka as his real therapist/ counsellor/ shoulder to cry on.
Binka’s story runs parallel, as a slowly tortured being. She says she hates him repeatedly. But she is also dependant on him. That is how totalitarianism works.
She gets two male partners in the play. One is a feral sexy one called Myone. The other is handsome but violent one called Whistler. She loves the first and is physically abused by the second.
Both are played by Milo Cawthorne in full costume. Laughter is evoked on their first appearance. Then your emotions are split.
Binka and Paul are tied to each other as they spend most of their time together. But with one important distinction which gets to the heart of the play.
In a past life, I worked at visiting all the prisons in Auckland. There is no greater feeling of ecstasy or happiness that you can experience, as when you get to walk out of a maximum-security prison. Day or night, sunshine or a storm.
Binka does get to escape out, a subtle difference. She does experience that joy.
I Want To Be Happy is masterfully played by two experienced actors, from an excellent script. Are happiness and freedom the same? You will need to see the play to find out.
Rev Orange Peel
I Want To Be Happy plays from 18 August to 2 September 2023
Get tickets HERE
