Paul Maunder
In the final year of writing a thesis on Community-based theatre in NZ, both as tendency and practice, I had the need to practice the craft again, rather than write about it. So I put a short press release in the Greymouth Star to see if anyone might be interested in participating. A diverse group of people came to the first meeting and we decided the 1080 issue was creating some energy on the West Coast. After the first training sessions with the inevitable falling off, we had a group of four plus someone acting as support person. We were all from outside the area and surprisingly experienced, people who had started off in theatre then specialised in a therapeutic role – that sort of trajectory.
As in many provincial areas, theatre on the Coast is moribund, apart from an operatic society, school productions, a small speech and drama children’s group, and an occasional visit from the Court with a show suitable for the local middle class. Certainly, that rich amateur movement that began in the 1930s, and which saw theatres in places as remote as Granity, died with the advent of TV and shift work. In Greymouth it had also seen a vibrant school drama department at Grey High and the production of Susan Battye and Thelma Eakin’s community play on the Brunner Mine Disaster. Alas, the satellite dish has taken over.
It was not possible to work in partnership with one of the 1080 factions without the piece being a polemic, but we consulted with the anti groups, the Animal Health Board and DOC, as well as reading widely. The problem is of course, that the research seems inconclusive on several points, particularly that of how long the poison stays in the food chain.
We followed the usual process of pooling research and the actors then bringing associations to share. These associations can be a song, a gesture, a scene… Each session involved a period of training with rotating facilitation. Establishing these relations of disciplined freedom that craft exploration brings was a very real pleasure.
On the Coast, most people are involved in physical work: mining, forestry, fishing, farming, the trades – work which is tied to the physical world in a practical way. The range of skills available in a village like Blackball where I live, are huge when it comes to a practical task. But this also means that, unlike the city, there are fewer people involved in what can loosely be called, ‘intellectual work’, and it is these people who are more easily attracted to works of the imagination. Digging a tunnel on the Coast is a daily, real event; in the city it can more easily be a metaphor.
So we were ‘foreign’ intellectual workers with a theatre background, working amongst the community on an issue of local concern. This latter was important, for too often here, and in a place like Golden Bay, the outsiders can exist in an ex-pat cultural space, with little reference to the locals.
After a few devising sessions, a script came together relatively easily. In the need to tell all sides of the story, the animals could do it more articulately, so three Commedia-type scenes between Kiwi, Possum, Rat and Stoat could wittily unravel the contradiction embodied in the title of the play: Poison and Purity. We’d had the realisation that the conflict was as much cultural as scientific. Coasters use the bush for food gathering and firewood. The Conservationists on the other hand (mainly from the city) see it as a precious object to be contemplated and preserved. When a hunter loses his dogs to 1080 he grieves; when conservationists see an area of natural diversity ripped up by an open cast mine, they grieve. So we had to include these two different cultures in contrasting narratives.
A simple scaffolding set was gifted by the scaffolder who lives down the road and we were ready to perform, when the Pike River explosion occurred and the region was plunged into disaster mode. Our rehearsal space looked out on the cottage of one of the miners trapped underground (and probably dead). The physical world placed in sickening perspective, the triviality of art and play. We crossed our fingers in the hope of some miracle but the second explosion, two days before opening night, meant we had to cancel. I was reluctant, for there seemed to be a possible hypocrisy: why is it okay to play two months later? My daughter put it simply when she said, People will be distracted.
As we disbanded for summer, I gave the cast Barba’s classic manifesto on the third theatre, for I had suddenly understood how it arose from a group working in a provincial setting. In this manifesto Barba proposes a theatre that, unlike the mainstream operating in the market, or the avant-garde operating in critical relationship to the mainstream, consists of groups of actors exploring the relationships of mutuality and authenticity that theatre work enables, and then offering these to the wider community as barter. Our work had begun to assume this quality.
Early in the new year we reassembled, organised a tour and were in dress rehearsal mode when the second Christchurch earthquake struck. This play was being dogged by disaster. But Christchurch being at least a little distant, we decided to perform as scheduled, with however, our support person excusing herself until her sister was dragged out of some rubble. During the following six weeks we played Greymouth, Hokitika, Hari Hari, Westport, Karamea and Reefton.
It was a fascinating season, for each of these places is a micro culture of the Coast. In Greymouth we had as audience, mainly newcomers, local intellectuals and artists, those who used to attend the theatre when living in the city, and those interested in the issue. In Hokitika a mix of the above, plus DOC and Greenies. In Hari Hari, the home of Farmers Against 1080, we had a community audience, one who seriously judged both our portrayal of the issue and our craft skills. Westport brought out those obsessive about the issue. Karamea is full of old hippies and we played a crowded café, and in heritage-focused Reefton we played in the recently renovated Oddfellows Hall, surrounded by lodge memorabilia.
The discussion after the play always flowed freely and was taken seriously. People commented on both the issue and the play. In terms of the latter they appreciated the wit and the clever construction, but also the fact that they could be portrayed on stage and it was not urban based caricature – they could be funny, sad and so on. This took me back to the early Amamus days and those first improvised pieces where the audience found great pleasure in simply ‘seeing themselves’.
Our role then had been not to take sides, but to facilitate debate, to move past fundamentalism, bureaucracy and state dictatorship, and to then advocate for participatory democracy (our contribution). In a sense, it was to let the act of theatre intervene.
For our next project, it felt necessary to focus on the unfinished business of Pike and art, so we are currently rehearsing a song drama, a wake which takes place on the night of the explosion. In doing this around the time of the anniversary we are advocating for the role of the cultural worker to move these social dramas into the realm of cultural imagery, of regional memory – in that way enabling the healing power of creativity to operate. In a sense we are looking at how memory is created. The performances will have to be private, in order to avoid any possible criticism of exploitation, and will be aimed at local cultural and intellectual workers, to, in a sense, build our confidence as a community within the wider community.
From there we will move back to the general community and tackle the thorny issue of local race relations. As well, at this point, the group will expand, for there have been a number of enquiries regarding joining. Meanwhile, we are thinking of offering the first two plays as a double bill at one of the arts festivals.
This feels like an exciting adventure and one for which I am very grateful at this stage of life.