Feb 5 to 11

by Keith Sharp

Inset: Kiwi rock musicals are rare events so the debut of Meatwokrs, teh tale of two women struggling to keep a rural meatworks open, is sure to raise interest. Keith Sharp talks to the show's stars, singer-songwriter Jan Hellriegel and actress Willa O'neill.

A new stage show brings together two of the hotter female names in Kiwi entertainment: singer-songwriter Jan Hellriegel and Scarfies star Willa O'neill. They've been paired up for a pretty rare event - a Kiwi rock musical opening in Auckland on February 8.

The romantic comedy musical, Meatworks, has Hellriegel and O'neill cast as two women campaigning to keep open a closure-threatened rural meatworks in the early eighties. While that may not sound like your average setting for this sort of show, the producers, Ocean Productions, would like people to think less in terms of the Lloyd-Webber type of musical and more in terms of The Rocky Horror Show and The Blues Brothers. With characters bearing names such as Herbert Bigbone, Bulky Bangman, Jenny Wildblood and Titus Arden, you kind of get the picture.

It's tempting to think that only in New Zealand could the closure of a rural meatworks become the subject of a stage musical, but Hellriegel reckons that it's a subject which the majority of New Zealanders can relate to, even if they've never worked in the industry themselves.

"I related to it and I'm an absolute townie," she told the TV Guide. "I don't know anything about the country. I've only been on a farm once in my life. I feel very uncomfortable when I'm away from town, but I thought this idea was really good; it was an interesting concept. It's a metaphor for community, maybe," says Hellriegel. "It has the different sort of relationships that I see in everyday life everywhere."

"And if people from Auckland can relate to a musical like Cabaret, I'm sure they can relate to something like this. It has a certain New Zealand sense of humour - very dry."

Despite having trained in opera before turning to rock music, this is Hellriegel's debut in stage musical work. With two albums - Tremble and It's My Sin - to her name already (and a third in the pipeline), the hit singer-songwriter has begun rboadening her horizons markedly in the last couple of years with forays into acting.

"For me, it's a big learning curve," says Hellriegel. "I quite like the acting side. I've been learning about that this year. I'm a musician, and I write my own songs, whereas acting is stepping outside yourself and becoming another character."

Devised and written by Joselyn Morton, with music composed and arranged by Stephen Small, Meatworks is directed by Roger Morton, who has enjoyed considerable success in recent years with his direction of the Steve Berkoff plays, Greek, Kvetch, East and West.

Production of this musical is timed to cash in at the height of America's Cup racing - and if it succeeds in its aim of attracting some of the wealthier international visitors over that period, then Hellriegel, O'neill and the rest of the cast could find themselves performing to some pretty influential people.

That's pressure for you.