Review: Winter Season (The Meeting / E Ipo, My Love) – vibrant and relevant new theatre works

Lisa Allan reviews The Meeting, by Lola Houghton and Pedro Ilgenfritz, and E Ipo, My Love, by Gisele Proud and Tane Te Pakeke-Patterson, presented together as the inaugural Winter Season, a double bill of new theatre works from the Hagley Theatre School Six-Month Theatre Creation Course, at the Gloucester Room, the Issac Theatre Royal, Friday 28 June, 2025.

The Hagley Theatre School (HTS) is a reimagining of what was formerly the Hagley Theatre Company (HTC), which ran for over 35 years under the direction of Cameron Mattox. Dr Pedro Ilgenfritz resigned his position at Unitec to take up this mantle when Cameron retired from his role in 2024, dramatically reconfiguring the course to what it is now – a one year actor training intensive and a six month theatre creation incubator. The Winter Season is the result of the inaugural theatre creation strand, showcasing the original work of three Unitec graduates, crafted in collaboration with Pedro as co-creator and director.

It is my first time attending a performance in the Gloucester Room and I choose the front row because the seating is, for the most part, not tiered, and I love to be able to see everything. The stage is set with three theatre flats (screens) created entirely from taped together cardboard boxes, providing wings and a backstage area.

Suddenly, Lola Houghton, the solo performer in The Meeting, bursts out, capturing the audience with her vibrant energy as she introduces her show with a series of disclaimers. Then the story begins. Three personal assistants manage to botch up the venue booking for a very important meeting and end up in a messy basement area which needs to be cleaned before the guests arrive. What follows is a story in two halves, with multiple characters brought to life primarily through broad and clever changes in voice and the way Lola holds her face, she essentially creates a mask-without-a-mask.

The first half is a Waiting for Godot-esque mystery. We are drip-fed information about the meeting but it is not revealed who is coming, nor who the PAs work for. The script is quirky and the narrative slow-moving and circuitous, perfect for clowning. The revelation of who is hosting the meeting creates a sudden shift in genre and we are now in a political satire where what was once surreal becomes all-too-real and directly relatable to our current governmental status. Through the eyes of the three PAs, a cleaner (Toots), a special agent, a journalist and a groupie, we are presented with political commentary. Lola retains her energy throughout and works hard to hold the space and tell her story.

At times it is unclear which location we are in, or what has happened (or why), but I am able to set this aside and still understand and enjoy the broader story and themes. The piece would benefit from taking a little more time to establish the three PAs at the beginning, to ease the audience into the quick-shifting style of the work. Engaging the whole body more fully to deliniate characters could also help and possibly occupying (even subtly) different spaces for the PAs, who often appear all together.

The very first interchange between the special agent and Toots is a highlight of the work for me, showcasing slick dialogue and skillful character switches. With lots of laughter and sympathetic ‘awwws’ for Toots, The Meeting obviously engages its audience, and with a little tweaking for clarity will surely go onto have a successful life on the Fringe circuit.

The second offering for the evening is E Ipo, My Love. After a break for the stage to be reset, we arrive back into the theatre to a single screen near the centre back of the stage. The house lights dim and a brown sperm on a stick emerges above the screen, soon to be joined by a white egg. From the very first, the dialogue is comedic and perfectly pitched, cleverly introducing the theme of the piece – the complexities involved in relationships between Māori and Pākehā.

The performers, Gisele Proud and Tane Te Pakeke-Patterson (Kai Tahu, Kāti Hateatea) are a real life couple but have fictionalised themselves to create this piece. Their onstage chemistry is both electric and comfortable, making them very compelling to watch. The story is that of fictional Gisele and Tane connecting in a club and moving through their relationship from meeting parents to having children, to growing apart, and getting divorced. Woven organically into this trajectory is an exploration of the encounter between two cultures.

The piece is intelligently crafted and different aspects of the story and theme are presented through interesting conventions such as puppetry (who would have thought the tail of a sperm could convey so much?), gentle audience interaction, physical theatre, a masked character (their friend Hemi) and his speech at their 10^th anniversary, a piece of paper / life metaphor, bringing photos of relatives to life to share their perspective on the interracial relationship, and more.

The piece is in no way didactic. It feels real, honest, joyful, heartbreaking and deeply relevant to life in bi-cultural Aotearoa today. I cry twice. And I laugh a lot. This work speaks to me as a Pākehā. While the focus is on one relationship, I immediately identify with my own efforts and desire to be a good treaty partner, and the subsiding of that effort. I feel into the macro expression of two races living alongside one another, and not yet having figured out quite how to do that in a way that really honours everyone. This work feels like a part of a conversation I have stopped having, but needs to be had. It is important mahi, delivered in a playful, gentle, respectful and hugely craft-focused way.

It is impossible for me to not view these two plays as being in dialogue with one another. While on the surface they may seem to be very different, when taken as a whole, they point to the creation of the coalition government as being the impetus for a growing apart between Māori and Pākehā in Aotearoa. I come away from the evening having been moved and entertained, and having been engaged intellectually in a way that I didn’t expect. Ngā mihi nui to the creatives involved in this season, and to Hagley Theatre School for creating the space for new and relevant work to be nurtured.

Winter Season ran from Thursday 26 – Saturday 28 June, 2025.