SCENE WGTN ISSUE 7

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I SSUE 7 | A UGUST 2018 Tro i lu s an d Cressi da | S on s | My N ame I s G ar y Cooper K orora- rek a: Th e Ballad of Maggi e Flyn n

WGTN

ISSUE 7 AUGUST 2018

in exchange for some more useful Trojan, and when Troilus sees someone at the camp flirting with her, things go downhill. Not a happy ending.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like a nice bit of Shakespeare.

The human condition is rarely captured so completely in a few lines by anyone else. But the stories and characters, reflective of their times, are predominantly male in action and in viewpoint, and this means I can struggle with an actual Shakespeare event.

But Ivana tells me they have cast those old heroes Hector, Agamemnon, Ulysses - as females.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Lonely Shakespeare Collective Directed by Ivana Palezevic Bats Theatre Tues 7th – Sat 11th August 8pm TICKETS: $20/$15/$14 BOOKINGS: www.bats.co.nz They call themselves the Lonely Shakespeare Collective because their mission is to take Shakespeare's less popular plays - the ones that stay lonely on the shelf - and bring them to life. To show their audiences that Timon of Athens or Cymbeline can be as much fun as Hamlet or Macbeth . To introduce characters worth knowing who might otherwise remain strangers to most people.

I wonder, rather frivolously, what their future will be when they accomplish this mission - surely a limited-lifespan theatre company? But director Ivana Palezevic isn't worried. There are enough lonely plays to keep them going for the foreseeable future. “And it could be that we return to some early ones in the distant future, after we've grown and learnt some more tricks.”

Lonely no more, and about to hit the stage is Troilus and Cressida . Set in the olden days - the later part of that endless Trojan War. The one that supposedly started with Helen of Troy being carted off by the Greek Paris from her Trojan husband Menelaus. The face that launched a thousand ships etc etc. Various well-known greats such as Hector, Achilles and Ulysses are involved in political arguments about whether to return her. Meanwhile Troilus, a young Trojan prince, falls in love with Cressida who is pretty much immediately sent to a prisoner of war camp

“I'm a strong advocate for giving women roles that they might not have otherwise have had a chance to play and this production was a real chance to put women in positions of power. Ulysses is a woman with the brains to arrange the strategy for the Greeks, while Helen is the cause of it all. Agamemnon is the woman leading the army and all hear and respect her final decision, while Cassandra (a Trojan princess who can see the future) has her warnings ignored. We have women of all statuses to explore in this show and that’s very exciting for me. And I know the women in the show are super-excited for this opportunity.”

Whenever I see these gender swaps happen - in Shakespeare and other classic plays in particular - it brings up questions.

These characters are male - would women behave in these ways? Would they think, talk, feel and act as these characters are shown to? Is this a world they would create?

And does aping a man bring women any closer to fair representation in the world? I generally feel the answer to all these is no. Totally aware others disagree. And interested to see how it pans out on stage this time...

Other modern elements such as technology - “cyberpunk” is Ivana's description of the style - will sit alongside ancient world references in the set and props.“To show the story's origins, but also that no matter what time we chose to set it in, the world and situation are universal.”

It's Lonely Shakespeare Collective's third production.

Here, the complexity of the text and the ambiguous tone of this “problem” Shakespeare - neither comedy or tragedy - are the main challenges the collective is embracing.

And they're hoping people will take something from the experience of seeing a play they might not otherwise have got a chance to see in it's full form.

Well - never seen Troilus and Cressida myself. Thanks for the opportunity, Lonely Shakespeareans.

SONS

BY VICTOR RODGER Directed by Sasha Gibb Tues 14th – Sat 18th August 8pm

MY NAME IS GARY COOPER

BY VICTOR RODGER Directed by Tess Jamieson-Karaha Tues 21st – Sat 25th August 8pm Bats Theatre TICKETS: $20/$15/$14 BOOKINGS: www.bats.co.nz Two plays by Victor Rodger are on at Bats in August.

Both performed by graduating Whitireia Stage and Screen students. Both reflecting Victor's Samoan heritage concerned with race, racism and identity.

I asked Annie Ruth, programme co-ordinator, tutor and director for the Whitireia Stage and Screen course, about the play choices for these third-year actors.

KORORAREKA: THE BALLAD OF MAGGIE FLYNN

BY PAOLO ROTONDO Red Leap Theatre Directed by Julie Nolan Hannah Playhouse Tues 28th – Fri 31st August 7:30pm TICKETS: $40/$35/$30 BOOKINGS: www.hannahplayhouse.org.nz Red Leap Theatre are heading our way from Auckland, where this play was first performed last year. Publicity tells us that Maggie Flynn is “a heroine created from the rich and vibrant true stories of New Zealand women. Maggie is fictitious but based on real characters and historical events. This work is a legacy to the women in our past, the ones often too wild to be captured by history books.”

Add to this, the director Julie Nolan told me, “An Italianborn male playwright bringing a script to female physical theatre director. A woman’s story about colonisation and bi-culturalism within New Zealand’s colourful history. Lots to process right there.” Sure thing.

Korora- reka - more usually known to us as Russell - is where Maggie Flynn arrives in Aotearoa as captain of a whaling ship, having left England as a convict. And this is just her beginning...

As a devising director of physical theatre, working with a writer and script has been a very different process for Julie. Rewarding, she says, with plenty of challenges.

“Learning to wrangle a script, with all those words. Red

She said they studied Pacifica Stage and Screen last year.

Met Victor Rodger. Were inspired and keen to explore his work further. Annie spent some months looking for a play by a Pacific Island woman that would complement one of Rodger's plays. Couldn't find one suitable for this group.

So chose these two. And there's a theme to this double offering, Annie tells me.

Leap works collaboratively to empower the people in the rehearsal room to come up with theatrical content.”

The designers were all deeply involved in the workshopping process also, so were an integral part of the production. “For this upcoming tour we’re committing to theatrical simplicity while retaining high production values and visual flair.”

It’s an all-women cast - there's five of them - playing a range of characters, from sailor to whalers, strong and powerful women to Ma- ori chiefs.

Based on true events - so some research went on? Definitely.

“Paolo, the writer, did massive amounts of research into the project, travelling to Korora- reka itself, meeting with iwi and kaumatua,” Julie tells me. “As a company we also travelled to Korora- reka for a week’s workshop.”

This feels to me like a step to re-balance history - bring stories of women into the picture? And not just a few white middle-class ones that got into more prominent positions in society?

Julie agrees. “Absolutely. There’s loads of amazing stories of women in New Zealand in the early 19th century but they can be harder to track down and often they were told by men, thus putting an entirely different lens on things. We loved the opportunity to tell a woman’s story the way we wanted to tell it, which is why I made the decision to have an all women cast, making it less literal and historically accurate but more about the woman at the heart of the story - Maggie Flynn herself. She’s wonderful with all her messy human-ness. Like so much in history, who’s to say what’s real and what’s concoctions?”

Yep, fake news is not a modern invention. I'm keen to see some alternative history.

“ Sons and My Name is Gary Cooper both deal with sons abandoned by fathers and also disenfranchised from a part of their culture. Both plays view the world through a male lens, but both have strong and complex female characters, giving the women in the cast excellent challenges.”

So - to start with, Sons . Pretty autobiographical it seems.

Noah finds out that his father, who abandoned his mother to bringing him up alone, is dying. Noah decides to reconnect with him - discover his own Samoan side. But this is no easy journey.

Written in 1995, rewritten in 1998, Sons was Victor Rodger's debut work. It won four Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. “Twenty years on, the story continues to ring true,” says director Sasha Gibb.

Sons is a story about a Pacific family and a palagi family.

“But,” she explains,“ it’s really what's underneath that.

Parents ‘protecting' their children, dependent relationships, psychological and emotional abuse, emotional blackmail, dysfunctional families, group consciousness, the search for identity…it’s got it all.”

The team feels the challenge of honouringthe depth of Victor’s writing and the layers upon layers within it. But as with any work, Sasha believes it's all about the depth they are prepared to go to, the research and work they are prepared to put in.

“As a half-caste myself I too have struggled with the questions raised through this piece. I’ve been too brown to be white and too white to be brown. This is the journey the cast are going through, understanding the layers of these characters, finding empathy for them when their choices may on the surface seem so difficult to understand.”

And though, yes, Sons is a male-led work, she doesn't feel the females are missing out. “The female cast in Sons have had a few ‘shock' moments as they've discovered something new about their characters and have at different times wrestled with the layers in their roles. There are no small roles in this work!”

Understanding human beings is what's of interest to Sasha. How we can look into our own selves and question our own choice making; what need are we meeting in our relationships, what are we trying to get from the person in front of us, how conscious are we?

“This,” she says “ is what I love about theatre.”

In the second play, My Name is Gary Cooper , the missing father is white and American.

Based on a true event - the making of a movie with film star Gary Cooper in Samoa in 1953, it looks at the effect of the American film industry on the South Pacific.

This son, John Ulu Va'a, is dealing with the wreckage of his mother’s life after she was abandoned by his American film-making father. As his mother was seduced by his white father, so his American family, in their turn, are seduced by him.

I spoke to director Tess Jamieson-Karaha for her take on the themes.

“Overtly, this play is about revenge and the devastation cultural ignorance can cause. It's about the glamorisation of sex that Hollywood delivered to the world and the influence it had in the Pacific. It's about crushed dreams, broken promises and survival.”

But also more than that.“A theme that stood out for me was the idea of cycle breakers. There seems to be an evolving consciousness in humanity, and increasing rhetoric, around unearthing, voicing and ultimately healing suppressed emotions and generational habits that have interrupted the bond in our most foundational relationships.”

The play covers three different times and settings - Samoa 1953, Hollywood 1973 and Aotearoa in 2000. Does this create staging problems? Tess says she's excited to research and explore the qualities of the three different places and times, so they can “ export our audience to these different worlds.”

And the overall tone of the play? She describes it as dynamic.“There are moments of great comedy then twists of tragedy. It has the ability to make you belly-laugh one moment and then be belly- wrenched the next.”

Both plays by Victor Rodger. Both on at Bats. In many ways perhaps mirror images of each other.

Sounds like a season ticket is the way to go.

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