Stamps, Suspense, Skulduggery

PRESS RELEASE

MAURITIUS

BY THERESA REBECK DIRECTED BY ROSS JOLLY

Stamps, Suspense, Skulduggery .

“It's been quite a while since a play has actually silenced the audience, leaving it clutching its candy wrappers instead of unwrapping them. Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius rivets our attention with a satisfying, edgy, quiet-before-the-storm feeling. The audience collectively inhales, waiting for what happens next. Rebeck knows what she's doing.”

So wrote the Houston Press when Mauritius played at the Alley Theater last year.

(If you want to see what the audience thought, have a look at the link on the Circa website!)

The New Zealand premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s MAURITIUS

opens in Circa One on Saturday 26th June at 8pm,

and runs until 24 July.

A gripping blend of sharp comedy and heart-pounding drama Mauritius makes for a fantastic night at the theatre that crackles with constant surprise.

The stakes are high when half-sisters inherit a book of rare stamps that may include the "crown jewel" of stamp collecting – the Post Office Mauritius. These two tiny slips of paper, the One and Two Penny “Post Office” stamps issued in 1847 from the island of Mauritius, are exceedingly valuable. It's the printing flaws that ratchet up the worth and make them "interesting," as one of the characters explains, "just like the flaws in people."

However, the battle for possession takes a dangerous turn when three shady rival collectors enter the sisters' world, willing to go to any lengths to stake their claim on the find.

With a high-suspense con game of cross and double-cross, all five characters end up in a desperate and funny battle of wits to secure the fabled prize. Mauritus gives a thrilling new perspective on the seemingly benign sport of stamp collecting!

Mauritius is the first of Theresa Rebeck’s plays to be performed in New Zealand, and Circa is delighted to be introducing theatre audiences to such a talented playwright.

“Theresa Rebeck is a slick playwright; in fact, she’s so slick that Gucci wears her shoes,” wrote John Lahr in the New York Times. “Her scenes have a crisp shape, her dialogue pops, her characters swagger through an array of emotion, and she knows how to give a plot a cunning twist.”

And from Variety, "One of Rebeck's strengths is her skill at stitching tension into every exchange - unsurprisingly for a writer with extensive experience in TV dramas like NYPD Blue and Law & Order: Criminal Intent!”

Mauritius marked Theresa Rebeck’s Broadway debut, and it has gone on to be produced throughout the States, gathering great reviews as it goes …

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“A real treasure … has ‘winner’ stamped all over it” – Houston Chronicle

“Razor-sharp .. a delicious dose of cunning … terrrific twists –

every second crackles and pops” – Sun Times, Chicago

THERESA REBECK on …..

… her inspiration for Mauritius

“I found pictures of those stamps from Mauritius when I was casually trolling online and I landed on a page of stamps from a 19th century Spanish lord’s collection. They were going on auction. There were a lot of very beautiful stamps and then I noticed you could click on these two stamps from Mauritius and the price showed up, and I thought, “Can that be true?” The catalogue price listed them as being worth something like $1.5 million a piece. I didn’t have very much information, but I was electrified by the idea that a stamp could be worth that much.

I started buying books and going to the library and trying to talk to people who were serious stamp collectors. I did a lot of research into the history of precious stamps, into philately. The lore that surrounds them was very moving to me; they become almost mythic. I found myself falling under their spell—they’re physically beautiful, and they’re so frail, and they have this mysterious and haunting history. I was particularly moved by the fact that it’s the errors or flaw flaws in the stamps that make them valuable. So, the play actually started with my fascination with those stamps.

Then I became curious about what people’s hunger in life is for, how collectors place their hunger onto the collectible and further, the different versions of that. The hunger and disquiet of the self is different in different people, and I began to see the stamps as something that all different kinds of hunger could swirl around.

….. the importance of comedy in Mauritius

“I’m someone who becomes extremely impatient if there’s not a good laugh right around the corner. When I write there are usually an alarming number of jokes. So I was working out the story, for Mauritius, and the stakes kept getting higher, and then I spent a lot of time thinking about Moliére and how very funny and painful those plays can be at the same time. That was in my mind, that union of opposites. And that was where, for me, the delight of the play started to come in. Everybody’s hungry and scrabbling and desperate and crazy for those stamps, and then at some point it’s, you know, “Maybe we should have a margarita!”

….. giving her audiences a great time

“I believe, in short, in plays that move, that grab audience interest.

I like that audiences seem invigorated by my plays. That's how it should be for people going to the theater. It's a lesson in empathy. I want people to know you can come to a play and have a fantastic time — that it's not a chore, that it's a way fun thing to do! I know there are plays that are like a plateful of spinach, and I get impatient with those, too. I realize the importance, but I think, 'Can't you throw in a few jokes?' Attending theater should be like reading Dickens — something that is profound and also a ripper of a good time. I hope I make theater that is meaningful but also fun. One does not preclude the other."

MAURITIUS

BY THERESA REBECK DIRECTED BY ROSS JOLLY

STARRING: AARON ALEXANDER, ANDREW FOSTER, DANIELLE MASON,

LYNDEE-JANE RUTHERFORD, JEFFREY THOMAS

26th June – 24th July

1 Taranaki Street, Wellington

$20 SPECIALS - Sunday 27th June – 4pm; Tuesday 29th June – 6.30pm

AFTER SHOW FORUM – Tuesday 29th June

Performance times: Tuesday & Wednesday - 6.30pm

Thursday, Friday, Saturday - 8pm

Sunday - 4pm

Ticket Prices: Adults - $38; Concessions - $30; Friends of Circa - $28

Under 25s - $20; Groups 6+ - $32

PROUD SPONSOR

CHRIS FINLAYSON

Kindly supported by
B>BOOKINGS Circa Theatre 1 Taranaki Street, Wellington

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