It's 4 am and Andrew is carving potato stamps. He's tied his flatmates' groceries to the ceiling. He's started giving away their belongings. He has a growing sense he might be becoming a twenty-first century prophet, which makes getting his essay in on time difficult. And on top of that, the potatoes seem to be taking on some kind of magical property.
Potato Stamp Megalomaniac is an autobiographical theatre piece, investigating a period in the life of Andrew Gunn, when he went manic.
The one-man show investigates the period through Andrew's eyes; the sense of endless possibility, power and exhilaration that comes with the early stages of mania. He pursues delusions of grandeur while going about his day-to-day life at university and in his flat. He begins making a potato stamp font that will save the world.
Gunn says, "Mania generally only appears in the media alongside tragedy, which doesn't really help us identify or understand how it starts. So I wanted to show the human side behind mania, the arc and kind of internal logic that leads people to do really questionable things."
Originally performed as part of the 2016 NZ Fringe Festival, Potato Stamp Megalomaniac will appear at Auckland's Basement Theatre for a two week run. In line with the show's title, a purpose-built instrument made out of potatoes will be played by Tom Dennison throughout the show.