He fishes in quickly drying puddles, flirts with watching women, stops traffic with a flourish of his gloved hand and plucks audience members from obscurity for a moment of fame (or is that infamy?). But for Canadian mime artist, Michael Carl O'Neil, it is all just an act.
O'Neil is just one of hundreds of performers contributing to the free Tuia 2000 performance programme. But rather than using any of the eight stages rigged up around the city, he has opted to do what he does best . . . . street theatre.
"But busking is very different to what many people think it is," said the multi-charactered O'Neil.
"Most of us are professional actors with registered businesses. Our acts might be funny but we take it very seriously".
O'Neil is based in an industrial city in Ontario, but travels for much of the year. His father a steel worker, did not approve of his son's clownish leanings…. Yet the young O'Neil was determined, his future would be under lights.
That's about 30 years ago and O'Neil's "silent theatre extraordinaire" has extended to include characters as diverse as "Charlie Chaplin" (the "Canadian Tramp"), living statues - Sir John A. Macdonald and Queen Victoria - and Mel the Mountie.
In reference to the way the audience gathers around him O'Neil describes his work as "theatre in the round" and says there are two acts - his own, and the spontaneous reactions of the audience.
He has been in New Zealand since early December and is due to leave in mid-March. But New Zealand is not new to him; in 1996 he performed in arts festivals in Wellington, Christchurch and Nelson.
The Tuia 200 team found him on the internet.
"This is how most of our connections are made these days, things are changing. The world wide web has become a major tool in the way we do business".
O'Neil says Gisborne audiences have responded well to his street performances and he puts that down to his commitment to telling a story.
"You have to have a reason for being there, otherwise what's the point?"
… he says he is delighted to be in the First City of the Sun to welcome in the new millennium.
"This really is an extraordinary period of time and this is where it is all happening."
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