The Motor Camp. Why would you go?

The Motor Camp
By Dave Armstrong based on a story by Danny Mulheron
Directed by Roy Ward
Auckland Theatre Company, Maidment Theatre
Until March 3

Going on holiday to the beach is something of a rite of passage for all New Zealanders. For some it is the dream idyllic getaway from the tedium and hustle of everyday life but for others it is a nightmare battle with the elements and other people.

Dave Armstrong brings these two elements together in The Motor Camp set at the Windmill motor camp somewhere up north - “certainly better than Ratehi."

It’s an inspired piece of comic writing which is sophisticated and sharp, occasionally straying into the risqué, the rude and even obscene – prudish sensitivities should be left in the foyer.

Two couples with their children, in separate caravans a few metres apart, are thrown together in a comedy of happy campers.

Frank Redmond (Stephen Lovatt), a training college lecturer, his wife Jude (Lisa Chappell) and 15 year old daughter Holly (Lucy Lever) have to put up with Mike Hislop (Greg Johnson), a local builder, his partner Dawn Tairoa (Nicola Kawana) and her 17 year old son, Jarod (Nathan Mudge).

The setting allows for the conflicts and the friendships which develop between families as they negotiate their way through their views on the pleasures of holidays, education, sex, pornography, racism and child abuse.

Frank, an old fashioned liberal who is obsessed with his high achieving colleague and “the phonics conspiracy,” is perceptively played by Stephen Lovatt, who deals with the conflicting demands made of him and the challenges to his world view with an edgy tautness.

Greg Johnson as Mike is superb as “the cheerful bigot” who challenges Frank and Jude’s liberal views on education and parenting, giving Jarod a few caring slaps.

As the university professor Jude, Lisa Chappell creates an animated holiday maker, enthusing over everything, dabbing her politically correct view on things, while immersed in a squabbling loveless marriage.

Nicola Kawana as the effervescent, cocktail-loving Dawn, provides a nice foil to the more sensible Jude.

Nathan Mudge and Lucy Lever as the two children are adept at exploring their own new beach front world. Learning the ways of white lies and cunning stratagems to prepare themselves for adulthood.

There are a couple of brilliant highlights as when Frank attempts to help virtually illiterate Jarod by having him read through one of the more sexually explicit articles in Penthouse, the only magazine which the boy has any interest in.

The play is peppered with announcements made over the squeaky PA system by the camp commandant, a pedantic Dutchman who attempts to keep order over the recycling bins, the trampoline and use of facilities.

While the play is a comic look at the human foibles it also paints a lively portrait of New Zealand dealing with issues of race, class and our perceptions of egalitarianism.