1. REVIEW - Rugby stage frolic hits funny bone
16 September 2011 at 15:13
Pack of Girls
Director Sarah Boon
Forum North, Whangarei
Reviewed by Lindy Laird
The most entertaining rugby game spectators are likely to see in Northland over the next
month will be played by a Pack of Girls.
The laugh-'til-it-hurts play kicked off its season in Whangarei on Tuesday night at a packed
Capitaine Bougainville Theatre - and the crowd went wild.
With its girlsy and boysy humour, bedroom scenes, biffo, dodgy fashion statements, cultural
and race p**s-takes, rural life, Kiwiana, rowdy audience engagement, astonishingly well
choreographed high-speed and slow-mo action and - hello - rugby, Pack of Girls kicks fair
play into touch.
Directed by Sarah Boon, Black Box Theatre Company's production is so good even people
who hate rugby will love it.
The Taniwhaeas (note the name - it's one of several cute Northlandisements inserted in the
play) are an unlikely mix of women to club together. The team is captained by Pam - played
by Alisa Hollings in a stellar performance - whose frustration at her rugby widow status
simmers away like an unexploded bomb. It goes off when Pam and hubby Tom (very
convincingly played by Craig Robertson), playing for the Evergreens, become embroiled in a
bit of on-field aggro worthy of a season of red cards.
Among a superb line-up of cast members, another real stand-out is Kim Anderson as Hazel, a
bona fide rugby widow who turns up every weekend to cheer on her dead husband
George. Anderson's portrayal of sad, staunch, drunken, ungracious Hazel is dripping with
nuance and comic timing.
Indeed, the entire cast gives winning performances of playwright David Geary's well-drawn,
endearing characters. All credit to Tania Lewis as Trish, Richard Johnston (Harry), Gayle
Dowsett (Carol), Liz Sugrue (Lucy) and Jo Thomas (DPB).
Pack of Girls offers a feast of great rugby sequences, very passable ball handling and tackling
and even a few "facials" more brutal than anything viewers might see in match TV close-ups.
Courageous directing includes the underplaying of some priceless moments, such as Hazel
having a chunder on the sideline while an audience attention-commanding battle rages centre-
field. Another scene involves a long drop that becomes the butt of more hilarity - these actors
really do put their bodies on the line. Beer crates and clubroom signage make up the bulk of

2. props in the pared-down, versatile, effective set and well-designed lighting plants the scene
firmly in provincial rugby-land.
While the players were match fit and committed, some voices occasionally lacked projection
and at times lines were delivered too fast - small flaws sure to be corrected in the next round.
Twenty years after it was written, Pack of Girls is still screamingly funny, and in Boon's
hands made fresh and perfectly pitched. Audiences should get in quick for tickets to the next
games - commentators are picking they'll sell out.
• Forum North, Tuesday September 20, then September 28-30; Turner Centre Kerikeri,
October 7; Dargaville Town Hall, October 14