Now Voyager: Black Faggot

Tonight another Wellington Festival piece of theatre - confronting, or perhaps not. It is called Black Faggot and I am looking forward to my first 'gay' Islander theatre, played probably by two 'straight' actors, it usually is. We'll see...

In the meantime I am having a restful day for my back ensuring an awake and enjoyable evening. Yesterday's gales have abated thank God, so tonight is a leisurely stroll and a bus to Cuba Street then to the Playhouse Theatre on Cambridge Terrace to see the two-hander social satire 'Black Faggot', and hopefully to enjoy it.

Well this gem may be locally situated but its appeal is universal, and the talent on stage is totally international. What a great show, the audience adored it, and it deserved a standing ovation.

The actors, whatever inclination they may have had, were so talented anything was possible. Because of the Islander content it may be a bit restrictive for some, but no matter, it is a winner, wonderfully written and impeccably performed. Viva Samoan theatre! I think even that arch-talented Aussie comic Chris Lilley would have loved it, perhaps learned from it. Six stars!

Pre-theatre tea at Floriditas

But first a return to Floriditas, as promised...

It is a fine night and the short bus ride into town sees me in Cuba Street in ten minutes, a nice preparation for the Black Faggot later tonight at nine pm. I pass by several iconic Wellington sights, the first a rendezvous of two young lovers in Cuba Mall, always a good place to meet up. She, a stylishly dressed twenty year old, slimly attired in black with heavy black framed glasses framing a pale, lightly decorated face, full lips slashed with a violent red you could see a mile away, perfectly applied of course. The makeup of the young Wellington women is fastidious and very fashion conscious. She smiles and gives a great wide armed chaste hug to her young date of Chinese origin, also bedecked with black frames and a broad white toothed grim. They look so good together, another racial mix brought about by common education and interests I would say. They probably even have a future together, for a while, anyway.

Then there is the ubiquitous busker, always ready to make a living on Saturday night on Cuba, as there are already at six pm a number of couples walking hand in hand looking for an inviting restaurant to try out, and there are many of those, believe me. I walk into Floriditas and it looks as though in a much earlier incarnation it may have been a butcher's shop, the old white tiles on very high walls and some on the floor giving evidence of that, and the marble-top benches could also be original. The service is impeccable, with pretty girls in long black aprons solicitously greeting you, but not too pushy, asking if there is anything you might like to look at, while serving the glass of water, un-chilled and no ice, of course. I notice there are pre-wrapped Floriditas breads for sale on the counter for a hefty fourteen dollars I believe, but they would be marvellously fortifying I'm quite sure. I may buy one some day as a gift - they are made for that.

I order a Japanese Sencha green tea as I am not hungry having already eaten at home, but the temptation of a dessert is not beyond me. The bespoke menu gives a lot of tantalising offers and the table along from me is diving into some delicious dishes. Rotund and red-faced, they epitomise the healthy (?) dining out-of-towners enjoying a Saturday night before the flics, or a show at the Wellington Festival. It is, after all, perfect weather tonight, and the Kiwis make the most of it. I catch sight of afar, the sophisticated pouring of bubbly, the equally discreet half filling of the red wine goblet, all in all, it is the 'fine dining' experience without any pretensions. And it seems, in typical Kiwi style, no tipping! In the US there would be a necesary 25 per cent surcharge on everything, but not here, in egalitarian Wellington.

Sencha tea...