The End of the Golden Weather

“I invite you to join me, in a voyage into the past, to that territory of the heart we call childhood.”

Bruce Mason’s quintessential Kiwi classic chronicles the friendship between a 12-year-old boy and the wild-limbed Firpo. Through the boy’s eyes we see the wonder of life on a perfect beach, in a perfect 1930s New Zealand, during a perfect summer.

It’s a world of magic and transformation, where anything can happen and miracles seem possible. Firpo is a social outcast who dreams of winning an Olympic medal. When the boy sets out to help Firpo make his dream a reality, ignoring his father’s rebukes and community ridicule, a battle rages between the eternal optimism of childhood and the harsh pragmatism of adulthood.

Gliding effortlessly between flights of poetic fancy and blunt everyday speech, The End of the Golden Weather is New Zealand storytelling at its very best.

Bruce Mason was one of the most significant playwrights in Aotearoa’s theatrical history. Writing with courage and insight, he was a lover of language and a champion of the underdog. This work celebrates 100 years since Mason's work and his extraordinary legacy in New Zealand theatre.

This show runs for 90 minutes, with no interval.