PHOEBE ROBERTSON
Some shows don’t just speak to a moment in your life—they seem to arrive because of it. The Ballad of Briar Grant, a fragmented, feeling-heavy meditation on friendship, love, and longing, caught me at a time when I was already thinking about how we outgrow certain relationships. Or maybe how they outgrow us. What does it mean to love someone who doesn’t—or can’t—love you in quite the same way? And what does it take to let them go?
This production doesn’t try to answer those questions outright. Instead, it gives us Hayley, our quietly heartbroken protagonist, and two different Briar Grants—two women who share a name but not quite a soul—living parallel lives on opposite continents. They are not the same person, but they echo each other, mirror and memory. It’s an ambitious concept, one that invites us into a story told not in clean arcs but in moments—missed connections, late-night phone calls, the shifting light of a French orchard.
Before we ever get to apples or France, the moment that landed most deeply for me was something far more domestic. Hayley, alone in her bedroom, wearing a party hat, lit only by a desk lamp, calls original Briar while her mother’s birthday party rumbles softly in the background. After the call ends, she sits. Waits. Then, just as the sound of the party singing ‘Happy Birthday’ rises behind her, she stands—perhaps to join them—then stops. She chooses instead to stay in the dim, lonely room and redial original Briar. It captured something so familiar—the hope that maybe this time, if you reach out, it’ll be different, that it’s worth missing the party, just for the chance to talk to the person you want to the most. The restraint in the lighting and sound design (by Jacob Banks and Ben Kelly) only deepened the emotional charge. That moment alone, for me, carried the heart of the play. It’s what I keep coming back to.
From there, the narrative jumps—with some whiplash—to a French apple orchard, where Hayley arrives under unclear circumstances. We’re later told that the original Briar booked the trip, suggesting some ongoing care or manipulation (or both). But I found myself struggling to follow the logic of the transition. Why apples? Why France? The orchard is scenic, yes, and thematically rich, but I craved more crumbs leading me there. The show wants to talk about beauty—what it means to behold something lovely the first time, versus the hundredth—but that thread feels tied too late in the piece, arriving most clearly during a podcast listened to mid-flight. More intentional build-up to this idea would have helped the motif resonate more deeply.
Speaking of apples—props to the customs officer who almost confiscated them (plastic, but still suspicious). The apples were at times charming and at others distracting. They were kicked around the stage (and sometimes into audience members) quite frequently, undercutting their symbolic weight. The repeated action of biting into them—while aurally satisfying—also lost meaning through overuse. If Samuel Beckett had set Waiting for Godot in an orchard, maybe Vladimir and Estragon would have faced the same issue.
Still, there are moments of beauty and philosophical heft. New Briar’s line, spoken upward to an absent God— ‘If it’s not through you, how do people change?’—is a haunting refrain for anyone who has ever begged for transformation. New Briar, played with grounded tension by Anna Barker, wants to become someone else. But the show suggests no easy road to that change. Only waiting. Only wanting.
The performances overall were strong, though I longed for more dynamic escalation between Hayley and New Briar. Their arguments moved in predictable beats—from witty banter to raised voices, each facing the audience in profile. It’s a theatrical convention that can work well—but here, it occasionally flattened the emotional texture. Sitting far to the left of the stage, I also found some dialogue hard to catch, particularly when actors delivered lines in profile. Clarity of enunciation was an issue at times, particularly during Hayley’s ballad—a gorgeously sung, heartfelt lament for original Briar composed (and sung) by Phoebe Caldeiro. Despite her beautiful voice, key lyrics were lost to muffled delivery and an unbalanced backing track, likely due in part to technical issues.
Technically, the production design (Heather Wright) offered several clever moments. The transformation of a crate of apples into an airplane window was particularly delightful, though I did wonder why apples remained visible at the top, uncannily suspended. Similarly, the three layers of drapes—only one of which was painted on each side—felt like a partially completed metaphor. Was it a deliberate choice or a design compromise?
Despite these questions, the production’s sense of place was a highlight. The sound scaping (Ben Kelly) of the orchard, party, and plane carried an impressive emotional geography. The show excelled at conjuring atmosphere, even when the narrative threads thinned.
The final scene loops back to the beginning, with original Briar now waiting in Hayley’s bedroom. Hayley sees her—and walks out. Calls for her mother. It’s a quiet, powerful subversion of the trope where the unrequited lover gets one more chance. But I was left wondering: why is original Briar there at all? What brought her back? If we are to believe she never cared for Hayley the way Hayley cared for her, what does this final choice mean? Is the play challenging our earlier assumptions? Or is the structure too constrained to make room for that question?
Ultimately, The Ballad of Briar Grant is a brave and tender show about unbalanced love, the longing for change, and the way beauty persists—sometimes despite us. It doesn’t always land its narrative transitions, and the symbolism can feel muddied. But there is great heart in this piece, and many moments that sing. It may not be tidy, but then again, neither are breakups. Neither are ballads.
This production doesn’t try to answer those questions outright. Instead, it gives us Hayley, our quietly heartbroken protagonist, and two different Briar Grants—two women who share a name but not quite a soul—living parallel lives on opposite continents. They are not the same person, but they echo each other, mirror and memory. It’s an ambitious concept, one that invites us into a story told not in clean arcs but in moments—missed connections, late-night phone calls, the shifting light of a French orchard.
Before we ever get to apples or France, the moment that landed most deeply for me was something far more domestic. Hayley, alone in her bedroom, wearing a party hat, lit only by a desk lamp, calls original Briar while her mother’s birthday party rumbles softly in the background. After the call ends, she sits. Waits. Then, just as the sound of the party singing ‘Happy Birthday’ rises behind her, she stands—perhaps to join them—then stops. She chooses instead to stay in the dim, lonely room and redial original Briar. It captured something so familiar—the hope that maybe this time, if you reach out, it’ll be different, that it’s worth missing the party, just for the chance to talk to the person you want to the most. The restraint in the lighting and sound design (by Jacob Banks and Ben Kelly) only deepened the emotional charge. That moment alone, for me, carried the heart of the play. It’s what I keep coming back to.
From there, the narrative jumps—with some whiplash—to a French apple orchard, where Hayley arrives under unclear circumstances. We’re later told that the original Briar booked the trip, suggesting some ongoing care or manipulation (or both). But I found myself struggling to follow the logic of the transition. Why apples? Why France? The orchard is scenic, yes, and thematically rich, but I craved more crumbs leading me there. The show wants to talk about beauty—what it means to behold something lovely the first time, versus the hundredth—but that thread feels tied too late in the piece, arriving most clearly during a podcast listened to mid-flight. More intentional build-up to this idea would have helped the motif resonate more deeply.
Speaking of apples—props to the customs officer who almost confiscated them (plastic, but still suspicious). The apples were at times charming and at others distracting. They were kicked around the stage (and sometimes into audience members) quite frequently, undercutting their symbolic weight. The repeated action of biting into them—while aurally satisfying—also lost meaning through overuse. If Samuel Beckett had set Waiting for Godot in an orchard, maybe Vladimir and Estragon would have faced the same issue.
Still, there are moments of beauty and philosophical heft. New Briar’s line, spoken upward to an absent God— ‘If it’s not through you, how do people change?’—is a haunting refrain for anyone who has ever begged for transformation. New Briar, played with grounded tension by Anna Barker, wants to become someone else. But the show suggests no easy road to that change. Only waiting. Only wanting.
The performances overall were strong, though I longed for more dynamic escalation between Hayley and New Briar. Their arguments moved in predictable beats—from witty banter to raised voices, each facing the audience in profile. It’s a theatrical convention that can work well—but here, it occasionally flattened the emotional texture. Sitting far to the left of the stage, I also found some dialogue hard to catch, particularly when actors delivered lines in profile. Clarity of enunciation was an issue at times, particularly during Hayley’s ballad—a gorgeously sung, heartfelt lament for original Briar composed (and sung) by Phoebe Caldeiro. Despite her beautiful voice, key lyrics were lost to muffled delivery and an unbalanced backing track, likely due in part to technical issues.
Technically, the production design (Heather Wright) offered several clever moments. The transformation of a crate of apples into an airplane window was particularly delightful, though I did wonder why apples remained visible at the top, uncannily suspended. Similarly, the three layers of drapes—only one of which was painted on each side—felt like a partially completed metaphor. Was it a deliberate choice or a design compromise?
Despite these questions, the production’s sense of place was a highlight. The sound scaping (Ben Kelly) of the orchard, party, and plane carried an impressive emotional geography. The show excelled at conjuring atmosphere, even when the narrative threads thinned.
The final scene loops back to the beginning, with original Briar now waiting in Hayley’s bedroom. Hayley sees her—and walks out. Calls for her mother. It’s a quiet, powerful subversion of the trope where the unrequited lover gets one more chance. But I was left wondering: why is original Briar there at all? What brought her back? If we are to believe she never cared for Hayley the way Hayley cared for her, what does this final choice mean? Is the play challenging our earlier assumptions? Or is the structure too constrained to make room for that question?
Ultimately, The Ballad of Briar Grant is a brave and tender show about unbalanced love, the longing for change, and the way beauty persists—sometimes despite us. It doesn’t always land its narrative transitions, and the symbolism can feel muddied. But there is great heart in this piece, and many moments that sing. It may not be tidy, but then again, neither are breakups. Neither are ballads.
 | Phoebe Robertson is a Pākehā writer and editor based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington, where she also completed a BA in Sociology and Theatre. Her work has appeared in Landfall, Takahē, Mayhem, SWAMP, Turbine, and Poetry New Zealand and her nonfiction has been recognised in essay competitions such as the Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition. |