The Polson Higgs corporate building in Moray Pl will be the unlikely venue for the latest Wow! production, Tracey and Traci, which is a fly-on-the-wall look at office cleaners.
Dunedin actors Barbara Power and Hilary Halba have been cleaning the Moray Place office for the past month to prepare for their roles.
‘‘We're the fictitious cleaning ladies at Polson Higgs. Every rehearsal, we clean solid for an hour to prepare for the roles,'' Power says.
‘‘We've also been interviewing cleaners. They're in an interesting world, because they inhabit public spaces when all the other people have gone home for the day.''
The play has given the pair a new-found respect for the custodians of mops and buckets. It's a job that's getting done every night around the city,'' Halba says.
‘‘Cleaning is something that miraculously happens overnight. Rubbish bins get emptied and desks get cleaned as though elves are doing it.''
Wow! has introduced a new dimension to Dunedin theatre over the past two years, staging site-specific plays at the Dunedin Railway Station (Lines of Fire) and the Otago Polytechnic hairdressing salon (Hairway to Heaven).
Tracey and Traci is directed by Clare Adams and can only be viewed by 12 people at each performance.
‘‘It's a real boutique show. Only 84 people will ever see it,'' Power says.
Bookings can be made at the Fortune Theatre.
Tracey and Traci opens for a week-long season at 7.30pm on Saturday at Polson Higgs in Moray Pl.
