New York left in the dust
Gareth Hobbs, a long way from New York to the Tinderbox inspiration wall.
The odd choice paid off. Five years later, after completing Victoria University’s theatre programme and getting familiar with our close-knit theatrical crowd, Hobbs, 24, has been nominated an Outstanding Composer of Music in this year’s Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards for his musical creations in the play When the Rain Stops Falling. He thinks judges would have liked the depth added by his pre-recorded cinematic composition to the show that played at Circa.
Hobbs, whose father is a kiwi, began cello lessons when he was six and taught himself guitar in his teens. He quickly found Ithaca didn’t fit his original vision. The town has a strong musical background and is known for its diverse musical population but Hobbs says he didn’t enjoy his studies there.
“It turned out to be very insular and made me claustrophobic. I felt trapped by the place and the course,” he explains.
After the move he pursued his personal interests as opposed to being firmly directed in what he describes as a narrow and often pretentious course of study.
“Here I was able to make up my own mind as to what was ‘good,’ for example, I did one of my final theatre projects on a British theatre company called Complicite.”
Hobbs, now a composer, sound designer and performer around town, has also joined a Celtic band to play the mandolin at a weekly set at Molly Malones and he will be performing in the Fringe festival.
Now he’s busy with a new project. A regular collaborator with The PlayGround Collective, he began in January to develop the music for the company’s new show The Tinderbox. The largely musical piece is a liberal adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale of a soldier who chances upon a magic tinderbox – “…essentially a very complicated matchbox,” laughs Hobbs – and, by way of making wishes performed by three ferocious canines, gets sucked into a complex world of conflicting choices.
Hobbs’ personal musical style incorporates a bluegrass twang – early on he was influenced by “old-hand bluegrass musicians” – and that same country, ‘rootsy’ feel is reflected in his compositions for The Tinderbox.
Set in an ‘old-West’-inspired dystopia where a barren desert landscape is the setting for an 1000-year old war, Hobbs, armed with his guitar, is one of a travelling troupe of musicians that tell the coming-of-age story to the audience.
He cuts an impressive figure on stage, mixing seasoned guitar playing with raw vocals to create original songs that are clearly all his.
“The songs are reflective breaks from the action, treated a bit like dream sequences” explains Hobbs, who wrote all the music and lyrics himself, “Music should always add something new, not just narrate or clarify the plot.”
Though the plot of most fairytales comes with a moral message, in this case one of self-betterment and making the right choices, Hobbs left The Tinderbox writer Eli Kent to grapple with how far he wanted to push those themes, preferring himself to avoid a central message.
“I like the way we don’t wrap up a moral nicely at the end like most people expect from fairytales,” he says, “The best art doesn’t point the finger but draws a vague circle instead.”
The Chapman Tripp Awards ceremony will be held on December 4 and by then The Tinderbox season will have just come to a close. He’s crossing his fingers for the award but either way, Hobbs is happy to celebrate how far he’s come.
“I’ve found opportunities here I wouldn’t have if I’d stayed in New York.”
The Tinderbox, Bats Theatre, 7.30pm, November 25 –
December 3.
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