Jun 3, 2014 Theatre
Sunday Roast’s Adam Gardiner – Funny Guy
Adam Gardiner is wondering where 14-year-old Maori boys hang out so he can go watch them. Observation is a key research tool for Gardiner as he seeks to define the boy and four other characters he zips between in Silo Theatre’s forthcoming Sunday Roast. The play, about a rural family who take in a foster child, is by Auckland playwright Thomas Sainsbury, known for his copious output of dark, offbeat comedies. And when it comes to dark comedy, this one really goes there, on both counts — skewering archetypes of the well-to-do, moleskin-wearing farming set along the way.
Gardiner and co-star Toni Potter have been working the script under the guidance of Silo’s new artistic director, Sophie Roberts, and Gardiner says it’s a fitting flow-on from the comedy festival. “It would be a challenge to more conservative theatre-goers but at the same time they will recognise the characters because some of them are them.”
Gardiner has to be the most in-demand comic actor in town right now. He started the year in the magical surrealist 360, then stepped back into Eden Realty as real estate slimeball Leon for a second season of TV One’s Agent Anna. Rehearsing Sunday Roast coincided with performing in Auckland Theatre Company’s Other Desert Cities. His trick to survival is training mates to never call before 10am and setting up a mattress in his dressing room to catch a nap before the curtain rises. The thing about being an actor is that you can’t franchise or expand production when business is booming.
Not that he’s complaining. His idea of success is keeping on doing what he loves. “I’ve never considered it a race to the top. It’s a race to the end. I want to keep working. I want to give eulogies at other actors’ funerals.”
Photo: Stephen Langdon.
Sunday Roast: Loft at Q Theatre, June 6 – 28. qtheatre.co.nz
