Re-Engineered

A Māori builder named Reg, played by Regan Taylor, arrives to a house in Wadestown after being contracted to build a gate to keep the owners’ dog from getting onto the road. After some difficulty in communicating with Karen, one of the homeowners, Reg builds the fence while exploring his past, alcoholism, and identity.

Set design, also by Regan Taylor, is used creatively throughout the performance. Against a charming backdrop of panels engraved with pōhutukawa shapes are piles of loose wood and a mound of sand in a corner. We watch as the set is changed and constructed over the course of the play. As the gate is built, Taylor uses the pieces of the set inventively to depict a variety of objects and scenes, such as a moving car or a prison-like fence he becomes stuck behind. A particularly delightful moment occurs when Taylor transforms into a convincing moa with nothing but a sheet wrapped around him, arm extended for the neck and beak.

Reg’s narration takes the audience on a wide-ranging journey through space and time. An imagined conversation with a therapist, played in voiceover by Mycah Keall, confronts Reg’s alcoholism and flashes back to a time in his childhood when he felt unloved and unwanted. Together with Kane Parsons’ sound design, Janis Cheng’s lighting design is used effectively to make these scenes pop, often segmenting the stage with colours and focused lights, making the background fall away as we are taken with Reg on his internal journey.

Throughout Re-Engineered, Reg’s exploration of heavy topics becomes personal and vulnerable as he directly challenges the audience to confront their biases. With the short runtime of the performance, the big ideas that are offered can feel abandoned too quickly as Reg moves on to the next topic. The effect is that the plot of the show becomes choppy, and it is difficult for us to find a thread tying the story together. Reg has a lot to share with us, and I hope that he continues to win audiences over while challenging them to think.