Salient. Official Newspaper of Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Vol 41 No. 1. February 27 1978
Purvis Returns — Red Mole
Purvis Returns
Red Mole
Wellingtonians will remember Red Mole from their 1977 stint at Carmen's 'Balcony', where each week they presented semisatirical cabaret. This venture was the culmination of three years' work spanning a wide variety of theatrical forms and fused together at times with wildly colourful carnival atmosphere.
Sally Rodwell, Alan Brunton and pianist Jan Preston (all still with the group) began in 1974 with White Rabbit Puppet Theatre. With the major addition of Theatre Actions's Deborah Hunt, the group embarked on a series of tours: Vargo's Circus, a summer holiday show; and Ace Follies, for which they were joined by, among others, Ian Wedde.
Through these shows and the two cabarets presented in Wellington during this period (Cabaret Paris Spleen and Cabaret Pekin 1949) the group began to explore new areas of performance: homegrown style puppetry, mime, dance, masks, clowning, and music.
After the presentation of a nativity play Towards Bethlehem at the end of 1976, the group made their first national breakthrough on the January '77 Split Enz tour. By then, the core of Red Mole as it now stands was well established. Rodwell, Hunt, Brunton, and Preston made made quite a name for themselves with The Adventures of Sir Janus Real, the story story of a medieval pilgrimage, which made new demands on their technique and proved that there was an audience for thier distinctive brand of humour and satire.
With 1977 came seven months of Cabaret Capital Strut in Wellington. The shows gradually matured and the group became known for their seemingly casual combination of tart humour and social examination presented with often elaborate spectacle (Hunt's fire-eating rates a special mention.)
Last year also saw Red Mole's shift to Auckland with Country Flyers, with whom whom they have become closely associated; Neville Purvis their emcee, a national character of intriguing dimensions; and singer Beaver. There they have performed both privately and in clubs.
And now in a North Island tour, they return to Wellington with Ghost Rite, adding Jon Zealando to the line-up. This new show, still in the cabaret mode, is said to maintain the emphasis on a magical theatre of exuberance' while rejecting the timidity of our self-examinations and exploring the harsh realities of life: the life-lessness and brutality of our human existance and the hostility of our environment.
In Ghost Rite, Red Mole defines a new world as children, where wonder at discovery is branded with tension and surrender. Each child is challenged to spend a night in a deserted house of ghosts.
This show is the group's swan song in New Zealand, for later in the year they are plan to travel through South-East Asia, India, East Africa and Europe performing puppetry, mime and poetry. They see Ghost Rite as a kind of purifying sacrificial piece (though not one, they insist, which lacks a sense of joy or fun) and since it is perhaps the last we will see of them for some time, it should be something well worth getting in on.
Philippa Campbell
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Neville Purvis "at your service"