Local play opens

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 17

Local play opens

“Objection Overruled,” described as the most exciting New Zealand work in recent years, opens its premiere season at the Court Theatre on November 3. The Christchurch author, Carolyn Burns, submitted the comedy to the annual. Playwrights’ Conference in Wellington last May. The play emerged as the undoubted highlight of the week-long workshop, and all professional theatres in New Zealand have now applied for performance rights. “Objection Overruled” had been compared to a Tom Stoppard play in style. It is witty, fast-moving, and takes outrageous swipes at our social attitudes.

The play opens in a courtroom. An unsuspecting husband is lured from the audience by his wife, then manacled to the dock and charged with the crime of living.

The life of the victim is exposed to hilarious and pathetic view. Members of the audience are selected as the jury to decide whether this "passionless” creature is, in fact, alive.

Carolyn Burns says of the accused in the play, “He is a product of our society, an example of how men are processed from boyhood to make them socially acceptable, how their emotion is tempered to ensure correct behaviour.” '.

But as Bums emphasises, the play is essentially a comedy, and there is laughter aplenty in it. The cast for “Objection Overruled” is one of the strongest ever assembled for a Court production. Elric Hooper returns, to the stage for the first time in twelve months — playing opposite Elizabeth Moody. As the two lawyers, they meet in comic confrontation;

Bruce Phillips returns to play the Judge. Phillips featured in five plays at the Court last year, notably as Treeves in “The Elephant Man,” Irish in “Foreskin’s Lament” and Tony in "Fifty/ Fifty.” ' David Copeland and Fleur Tudor play the husband and wife, and Wickham Pack is the all-purpose, and versatile, clerk of the court. The director 1 is Simon Phillips. One of New Zealand's most brilliant young directors, Phillips normally works at Auckland’s Mercury Theatre.

The exciting set is a collaboration between the Court’s resident designer, Simon Allison, and a local artist, Neil Dawson. “Objection Overruled” is a refreshingly new play, without the normal New Zealand self-consciousness, yet pertinent to New Zealanders and how they live today.