A pinot paradise or a Speights society?

Central, a comedy-drama by Dave Armstrong, is staged by Invercargill Repertory November 27 to December 1. Michael Fallow reports.

Here’s how you might pitch the storyline for Central to some bigshot producer you’d collared in a lift. You’ve got this Invercargill girl working in the hospo industry, see?

Hang on, sorry, sorry . . . started wrong.

There’s this guy, right? A chippie in Central Otago putting down a deck for this rich scriptwriter at his flash vineyard which the guy can afford because he wrote a reeeaally big Hollywood action film.

Which he hated. But now he’s working with his partner to get a Kiwi arthouse film made. And she’s an actress.

So this is paradise. But here’s the thing; where there’s paradise, there’s trouble when people show up. Sorry? Yeah, sure, it’s a bit like Avatar. But you’ve also got your biblical themes. Paradise has its snake.

No, I know we don’t have snakes in New Zealand.

Not a real snake. A faraway Hollywood producer tempting the writer with heaps of money for a sequel.

And a pair of developers scheming to get a development built up Arrowtown way.

Okay, yes, that’s three snakes. Doesn’t matter.

No, there’s no actual three-headed snake monster. This isn’t a Weta production.

Well, there is this hairy-arsed beetle ...

Here’s the thing. Even though he’s rich now, it turns out the writer is really Green at heart. You get that, sometimes.

So when he finds out about this development he sets to work to stop it.

Except here’s the conflict. The chippie, he’s really keen on development.

But he would be, because he needs the winter work.

And he’s as bit thick. So he’ll be funny. The actress is kind of likeable but she’s in her 30s so . . . you know . . . but the young Invercargill girl is pretty hot. That’s where she comes in. As a housemaid or something.

It’s a comedy drama. And a tragicomedy maybe. No special effects but it won’t be too clever-clever. We’ll have zingers.

It’s a comedy drama. And a tragi-comedy maybe. No special effects but it won’t be too clever-clever.

All right. Enough of this fictionwithin-a-fiction. Back in the real world now. Or the slightly less unreal world of Invercargill Repertory, which is staging Dave Armstrong’s Central next week.

(And please take that look off your face if you think you’ve already figured out how this story plays out because of that beetle reference. Just like the real-life Stockton Mine/West Coast snails malarky? Think again – you’re way off.)

A wee play that bitches about Hollywood and developers might strike you as a tad too easy. Therapeutic but futile. Tiny voices railing against a massive industry.

Mercifully there’s more going on than that. It’s true the play is not a hymn to the reasonableness of money men but that doesn’t mean it’s an altogether straightforward tale of virtue versus Mammon.

It’s hardly a spoiler to say that Armstrong himself is a bit of a left winger. But Kiwiblog’s David Farrar isn’t, and when Central was staged in Wellington a couple of years ago, Farrar said it’d been his favourite play of the year. Which might tell you something.

Armstrong has long maintained that virtuous characters giving voice to a playwright’s personal beliefs are a waste of time.

Because those people don’t really exist. They are just too pure.

So it’s no accident that the writer character Michael, much as his views might align with Armstrong’s, has been rendered more than a smidge dislikeable.

And the opposing view, right or wrong, comes from a much more companionable character, Brian the chippie.

It makes for a more interesting attraction-repulsion dynamic. Whatever your own stance, on balancing development and environmental imperatives, immigration law, affordable housing, the struggle to maintain integrity and still earn a living, you’re liable to find provocations as well as couldn’t-have-said-it-better moments.

The play certainly isn’t as pious as Michael. There will be times when you ache for the affable chippie (played by Conrad Broad, a maestro of the ‘‘yeahnah’’ and the uncomprehending nod) to become just a bit less sweet natured and take his nailgun to this blowhard.

Armstrong wrote Central during a residency in Bannockburn in 2012, by which stage he was already wellestablished in the artsy firmament.

He’d won the 2005 Chapman Tripp theatre awards for The Tutor but, let’s be honest, much admir’d though it may be you probably haven’t seen it.

So as The Simpsons’ Troy McClure would say, you might remember Armstrong as the writer from such TV series as Bro’Town, Spin Doctors, The Strip, Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby, and, back in the day, the Semesis sketches in Skitz. Or as a Stuff columnist.

Rehearsing at Repertory House, Mark Holmes as Michael, is throwing out all manner of emphatic statements as he swirls some of his pretend pinot around his fornow-plastic glass and coming up with all manner of cod-profundities.

The pinot grape, he intones, thrives under stress.

Michael likes to think he does too, even as he negotiates the challenging reality that he’s living in a country where we make just two sorts of films.

‘‘We do arthouse and shithouse.’’ Whether or not this character turns out to be prepared to bleed for his art, the actor playing him finds himself doing exactly that.

A nail protruding from his seat has snagged Holmes’ leg, and as the blood starts to gush – okay, dribble – all around the theatre there’s concern .

But not for him, obviously.

‘‘We don’t want you staining the set!’’ comes the distant voice of director Jonathan Tucker.

Patched up for the protection of the theatrical environment (metaphor!) Holmes continues to give voice to Michael’s tiresome wit – albeit that in this stage of rehearsal one or two lines elude him and he needs a prompt. (After one pause:) ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

‘‘I don’t know the line.’’ ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

‘‘I DON’T KNOW THE LINE!’’ (Long pause)

‘‘ ‘What’s wrong?’ IS the line.’’ Ah, you can’ write that stuff.

As for the womenfolk in the house, about whom we’ve been silent, well there are times when an audience just needs to wait its patience.

❚ Central, a comedy-drama by Dave Armstrong, is staged by Invercargill Repertory November 27 to December 1.

ROBYN EDIE/STUFF The four actors in ‘Central’ are, from left, Karen, played by Matilda Phillips, Cherie, played by Victoria Mills, Brian, played by Conrad Broad, and Michael, played by Mark Holmes.

Cherie, left, played by Victoria Mills, and Michael, played by Mark Holmes, during a scene in ‘Central’. ROBYN EDIE/STUFF

Invercargill Repertory, will stage Dave Armstrong’s (pictured) Central next week.