MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS by Heartbreaker Productions. Basement Theatre, 20-24 August.

Midnight Confessions is a pajama-party confessional revelling in the joy, naivety and confusion of teenage friendship and growing up. A love story to girlhood and a more innocent (physical) age.

Structured around the “confessions” of the title, a semi-internal dialogue revealing each character’s particular points of fragility, our four characters (Abby Lyons, Anna Barker, Alia Marshall and Mia Oudes) charm and sweetly cajole. (Although the saccharine jar is never too far away.)

It’s first appearance here in Tamaki Makarau, Midnight Confessions was a hit in Wellington for Heartbreaker Productions, who’ve previously received nominations for Playmarket’s Playwrights b425 award (Oudes) and Ngā Whakarākei O Whātaitai / Wellington Theatre Award (Barker a finalist for Most Promising Emerging Newcomer and Winner of Absolutely Most Original Production).

The piece starts casually but well, the audience welcomed into a rehearsal that becomes a performance, that becomes our introduction to these characters, pulling us in with humour and dance. It felt like a call to the Tiktok generation. The set was simple and effective, with a glitter-ball blue skyline effect, and old books and magazines suggesting nostalgia. The sound mix integrated well with action. Dialogue was dense, if not deep.

Beyond that, the weaknesses of collaborative writing began to show, with effective moments but little to make any real overarching drama. We wanted story, but got scenes. We waited for revelation, and were delivered adolescent growing pains. We were promised “a show that will take both younger and older women on a nostalgia trip into the fort of forgotten sleepover joy” … and by gum, yes, we were given that!

The guilelessness in the end is effective, it not infectious. A Peter-Pan night for women who want to stay girls forever.

Theatre Peter

MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS is on at Basement Theatre 20-24 August.

More info here.

Tickets here.

Image credits: Ashton Marla, Maeve O’Connell & Aimée Sullivan