At one level, The Tutor is a comedy about male bonding, making allowances and reaching good outcomes.
John Sellers and teenage son Nathan live in luxury on Auckland's Paritai Dr. Richard Holton, hirsute and corduroyed, teaches at the kind of low-decile school they sneer at.
He's supposed to bring Nathan's maths scores up to scratch, for reasons that turn out to have little to do with education.
The clash between Sellers' ignorant convictions and Holton's educated egalitarianism provides endless comic possibilities, and Friday night's audience spent much of the evening in stitches.
Jake Metzger is excellent as the scowling Nathan, whose habitual defiant brattiness wears just thin enough to reveal the kid who's tired of not being loved. John Pheloung slightly overdoes Holton's political correctness, but also demonstrates that a shaggy exterior can conceal interior toughness.
The pivotal character is Sellers, and it's through him that playwright Dave Armstrong gives the play an extra, satirical dimension.
He's of a type widely admired in New Zealand - self-made, ludicrously rich, describing himself as "very successful" and claiming to have the ear of cabinet ministers.
Yet, except for his millions, he's phenomenally unsuccessful - an appalling father and a selfish, foulmouthed bigot who exploits his workers, abuses alcohol and assumes that everything, including exam results and court cases, can be bought.
Phil Vaughan's portrayal of him is almost unrelentingly loud and obnoxious, emphasising his character's limited intellectual and emotional range.
While Sellars yells, snorts cocaine and writes cheques for colossal sums, a committed, hardworking teacher at a desperately deprived school struggles with mortgage payments and the cost of running a Daihatsu. Go figure.
Director Patrick Davies' well-paced production does justice to the play's contradictory aspects.
It will give you much to laugh at and also, if you are so inclined, much to unsettle you.
- Barbara Frame
