Family show brings double the laughs
Hilarity, high jinks and a whole heap of slapstick will be coming to the Centrepoint Theatre stage with Shortland Street actor Jarod Rawiri showing the audience his funny side.
Calling on his inner clown, Rawiri will be performing with the White Face Crew in their family show Double Derelicts. The show follows the story of two colourful street characters who go head to head in a city park.
Rawiri said there is plenty of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keating influence and some old fashioned and charming comedy as well. A change, he said from his Shortland Street character, Mo Hannah.
‘‘He faces some pretty adult sort of problems, so it is nice to be able to let myself go a bit with this.’’
Rawiri said the White Face Crew focussed on shows for the ‘‘young at heart’’ including plenty of clowning and physical theatre.
‘‘I guess it’s little known that I’ve always had this interest in physical and improvised theatre. The cast and crew here [at Shortland Street], whenever I tell them I’m doing this clown show they give me a sideways look a little bit….there’s a few clowns walking around in the cast already.’’
Double Derelicts has been performed throughout New Zealand and started out as a dance piece created by the other two members of the White Face Crew, Justin Haiu and Tama Jarman. Rawiri said it was about ‘‘two guys getting on and off a couch’’ and was a jumping off point for what became Double Derelicts.
‘‘We tried to create some characters from there, so we decided because the couch was a pretty busted up old thing that the characters would be a couple of derelicts. Then we created a story from that.’’
Double Derelicts will be performed at Centrepoint Theatre on October 5 – 8.