The End of the Golden Weather is Bruce Mason’s most well-known play that has been performed many times over the years and which now returns to Auckland as a one-actor show starring Stephen Lovatt and the artful direction of Shane Bosher. As an added bonus for this season Lovatt also performs Mason’s Not Christmas, But Guy Fawkes each evening.
The End of the Golden Weather is a set of remembrances of a twelve-year-old boy growing up in a fictional seaside town north of Auckland in the Depression era. His family is doing okay but there is widespread poverty that ultimately culminates in rioting. Not all the stories are negative though as the boy recounts excitement and over-indulgence at Christmas, idyllic moments on the beach in summer, and a friendship with a mentally ill young man called Firpo. There are moments of sibling rivalry, charming family anecdotes, and encounters with the many quirky locals and passers-by.
It is an engaging story replete with a great balance of drama and humour that explores the world of an adolescent as he begins that tenuous journey into adulthood.
Not Christmas, But Guy Fawkes has similar themes to the above-mentioned play. Its sole narrator explains that his family moved to Takapuna in 1927 and shares aspects of his life as he grows from a young boy to an adult. There is something of the effete about this young man. He is aware of his own talent and his ‘otherness’, which includes his loathing of football in which he ‘failed spectacularly.’ Not quite fitting in led to bullying and humiliation. But his most compelling memory was an ongoing form of consensual bullying from a fellow schoolboy who he developed feelings for. This piece of theatre touches on the bisexuality Mason hid for a large chunk of his life. The final scene was essentially a monologue of Mason’s own where he excoriated the soulless nature of Pakeha New Zealand culture and his passion for creating theatre that explored the Kiwi psyche.
This evening of theatre is extraordinary and quite the double-bill. Jane Hakaraia’s set was simple yet dramatic – a long piece of some kind of crinkly fabric descends from above and looks just like the cliffs on those northern beaches.
The language in both scripts is deeply poetic and brilliantly captures the idiom and soul of Pakeha New Zealand society. The characters, the issues, the attitudes may be from the 1930s and our culture may have changed somewhat thanks to increasing diversity over the last few decades but there are echoes of that past still alive in pockets of New Zealand society and that makes these works valuable.
At the heart of it all is the incomparable Stephen Lovatt. Are there superlatives that might describe this man? He is an actor who makes it all seem so effortless but compellingly authentic. He can take one or two slight bloopers and integrate them seamlessly into the story, he can flirt with an audience while seemingly being unaware we are watching him. He can deliver a devastating line and then pivot to something funny without the slightest hesitation. He is an incredibly nuanced and capable storyteller whose characters – from the mentally ill Firpo to a quite prim and camp school teacher – are vivid and superbly performed. The script is challengingly complex and full of metaphor which Lovatt delivers perfectly.
Bruce Mason’s vision was that New Zealand would grow up and that theatre and the arts would gain respect while challenging the country and its culture. Watching Lovatt and Bosher’s incarnation of the playwright’s works, watched by their peers, it is clear that vision has been realised.
This is a theatrical experience Mason would have been proud of.
The two plays can be seen separately or together:
END OF THE GOLDEN WEATHER
23 July – 2 August 2026
Q Theatre
NOT CHRISTMAS, BUT GUY FAWKES
23 July – 2 August 2026
Q Theatre
