A Night to Dismember

Overview

A Night to Dismember is not like any other show you might see at Auckland Fringe. It's a fantastical yet highly enjoyable and amusing tale of love, loss of limbs, talking meteorites and girlfriend-stealing sharks.

A couple of bloodied, severed hands are the only props adorning the back wall of Basement Theatre. A voice over announces the start of the show and Australian creator and actor Wil Greenway walks hesitantly on stage. He is barefoot and wears a blue singlet and shorts under a kid's plastic poncho adorned with the cartoon image of a shark. It's a ridiculous look but one which fits the mood of this one-man-show perfectly.

Greenway's character is self-loathing and socially awkward, hardly your typical protagonist. He lives at home with his parents and his brother whose 'girlfriend' turns out to be a blow-up sex toy. Greenway's extraordinary story centres around, as the title would suggest, being dismembered. What happened, he explains, is that a talking shark ripped off both his arms in two separate attacks. If you think that's weird, well that's only the start.

Disfiguration only intensifies Greenway's sense of alienation. In his quest to become whole he is rejected by his ex-girlfriend Liz and befriends a talking meteorite named Jerry, who has his own confidence issues. He goes bush for a while before riding back into town to find he is not the only one to have been dismembered.

In the hands of a lesser writer this story could easily have unravelled into a tangle of confusing stories but Greenway is not only a captivating figure to watch, he is also a skilled writer who can weave a string of ludicrous events together to form a cohesive tale, allowing you to get lost in the story. The only disappointment is the Hollywoodesque ending, the only unoriginal element in a highly original play.

Greenway's subtle portrayal of a man lost at sea is underpinned by some seriously weighty issues yet the story remains humorous, engaging and above all very human throughout.