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  Art Murmurs - Wellington Reviews

Reviews

The Dunstan Creek Haunting

15/7/2019

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Austin Harrison

Picture
​Theatre company, Rollicking Entertainment’s latest offering to Circa Theatre is a deep dive into the world of hauntings and superstition. Inspired by performers Lizzie Tollemache and David Ladderman’s discovery (while on their honeymoon) of the many ghost stories which ruminate through the lands and minds of Central Otago, The Dunstan Creek Haunting is both a joyful adventure and spooky as heck.
​The show opens with Tollemache and Ladderman entering stage in sheets, jamming to popular tune (I don’t want to spoil, so go see the show, it’s a banger of an opening!) which has the audience singing along and up for a night of entertainment. The performers begin the show with an old school presentation, on a carousel slide projector. We are told many of the ghost stories from around Central Otago. This phase of the show is fantastically well researched and fascinating. From the story of a group of lost Chinese miners to the abandoned shelters found just outside Alexandra, I found myself Googling several of the stories after the show, wanting to know more. The show even features real life props taken from some of the locations these stories feature, a testament to the duo’s commitment to this project. 

Finally, the show shifts gear to recreate the story of Rose McKendry and Ben Hunt, of the infamous Vulcan Hotel. We are informed “this is the acting bit” and they recreate the story for us accents, and reconstructed hotel set (donated by the Court Theatre) included. Things start to derail in a controlled and exciting way and the show concludes with a truly tense and eerie experience. The performers masterfully create and hold tension throughout the show, inevitably getting a glorious mix of laughter and fear from their audience when that tension is broken. 

The technical aspects of the show are very strong.. The recreated set is accurate and believable, and the ebbs and flows of the show are ably assisted by movement of the stage-pieces (silently and mysteriously stage managed by Stevie Hancox-Monk) and by the lighting designed by Molloy. Molloy must also be given special props for the sound design on this show. Music and SFX sneak in and out of the soundscape of Dunstan Creek Haunting to great effect, and often add to the tension without making itself known, the mark of thoughtful and well executed design. 

If I have any criticism of this piece of theatre, it is that it all feels very far away. Because the early slideshow presentation happens in front of the set, I never truly felt ‘in the room’ in the remainder of the show, there was too much dead space between us and the action. I can’t help feeling that a more intimate venue, or perhaps more intimate staging such as in the round or traverse may have brought us deeper into the piece. I would also have loved a better view of the audience. The collision of impulse to laugh or to scream was such a wonderful part of the show, I would have loved to be able to share this with my fellow audience members in a more intimate way. 
This seems to be a year of immersive horror in Wellington, with theatrical offerings in this genre abundant in 2019, and I must say that this is my favourite of them so far. Intriguing, tense, and masterfully performed, it’s a show which is sure to bring laughs and screams to audiences all season long! 

Rollicking Entertainment’s The Dunstan Creek Haunting runs at Circa Theatre until July 20, alongside their children’s show ‘Bathtime Bubbles: a Magical Adventure’. Visit the Circa Website for more info and to book your tickets.
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