July 25, 2008

John Smythe      posted 23 Jul 2008, 09:44 PM / edited 23 Jul 2008, 09:46 PM

Thomas Sainsbury is clearly blessed – or cursed? – with a compulsion to make plays from his heightened responses to the world around and within him. At 25 his score of plays written and produced is into double figures* and apparently there are many more in the pipeline. This marks him as a true playwright: he simply has to write plays.

As a four-time co-winner of the New Zealand Young Playwrights’ Competition, Sainsbury has had good industry support: “Having your play workshopped with enthusiastic passionate practitioners is such a privilege and such a joy,” he says on the Playmarket website Young Playwrights page.

Because he is also a skilled director, Sainsbury has sidestepped the almost inevitably dispiriting process of submitting his scripts to established theatre companies or independent co-operatives then hanging out for the remote possibility they may a) want to do his play and b) get funded to do so. He simply gets on and directs them himself, with business partner Beatrix Coles producing. And they attract skilled young professionals to the projects because, I presume, they love his work and the challenging opportunities it gives them to play juicy roles in richly imagined scenarios directly connected to the world they are part of.

The ‘thanks’ list on the programmes for the brief seasons at BATS, of The Mall and LUV, suggest that while minor sponsorship has helped them defray some expenses, these highly proficient and dedicated performers will be working only for their co-op percentage from five performances of each play in a 100-seat capacity venue.

In a March Sunday Star Times article, Felicity Monk reveals Sainsbury’s plan to leave for the UK (she says in July but the plan, now, is to go September). “There, he says he’ll probably end up ‘working in a call centre for the next 10 years, becoming a shell of a man’. Does he entertain dreams of becoming a West End playwright and seeing his plays on the big stage? Not really. ‘I love fringe theatre and I love small and alternative venues; that’s my kind of theatre – grunge and raw.’

I have no doubt Sainsbury (and Coles and their respective life partners) will gain a lot from this planned OE, enjoying the stimulus of an international city steeped in theatre culture, getting clearer on what is distinctive about NZ in the process … And if they succeed in getting some of his play on over there, there will be benefits flowing in all directions.

The question that follows is, what will eventually attract Sainsbury back to NZ, to the place where he is much more likely to generate his most authentic and deeply rooted work? Or will we lose him, as we have so many others?

When the Thomas Sainsburys of our world want to make a viable profession out of their work, what does New Zealand have to offer – and what does their work have to offer us, as nourishment for our own sense of ourselves and as creative exports to raise international awareness of NZ? When we evaluate our professional theatre scene, these are the crucial questions we must keep on asking.

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*To get some insight to his recent output, type Thomas Sainsbury into ‘Search’

Paul McLaughlin               posted 25 Jul 2008, 09:23 AM / edited 25 Jul 2008, 09:25 AM

I concur with John on some of these points – what does NZ theatre have to offer to emerging writers like Tom, Paul Rothwell et al?

Playmarket is a staunch supporter of these talented young writers, and directors such as David Lawrence and others take on these new works and get them on stage. My concern is that these premiere productions are almost all poor-theatre renditions, or seasons that are hastily mounted, under resourced, often directed by the writers themselves and performed by dedicated actors who are very often paid little for their contribution.

 My challenge is to the appropriate funding arms of CNZ and Creative Communities to fully fund seasons of these new writers’ work. Allow experienced directors, creatives and actors to interpret and perform these vital new works by paying them adequately. Allow a full and unfettered exploration of the design concept/s by freeing up funds for more professional production standards. We would all win.