A Different Light’s production of The Wizard of Oz, at first billed for the cancelled Body Festival and now incorporated into CPIT’s Ignition Festival, is by turns delightful and thought provoking. While its mixed ability cast touch on such serious issues as discrimination and the label of ‘disability’, the show’s humanity and wry humour make it accessible and moving. 

The Wizard of Oz eschews narrative story-telling in favour of an exploration of the actors’ relationship to the 1939 film’s characters and themes, and the performance is a series of intertwined vignettes and performances that start with a darkened declaration of fears and anxieties, told like ghost stories, and then move through the worlds of the film and the actors’ experiences. 

The actors move along an invisible yellow brick road, welcomed by hip hop-dancing munchkins; second-hand high heeled shoes – ‘ruby’ slippers in beige and brown – are pulled from a yellow box, and Toto eloquently describes how easy it is to be stereotyped and misunderstood. Another actor takes her daily regimen of psycho pharmaceuticals from a yellow smiley-faced lunch container, ironically noting that they are meant to make her world shift from black and white into colour.

The joys and grotesqueries of the film are realised on stage in a way that provokes laughter and invokes gentle pathos. It is clear that the desires and interests of the cast have driven the piece – they are in control of the stage and the story. 

McCaffrey’s work with his mixed ability cast reminds me a little of the drive behind Te Rakau Hua o te Wao Tapu’s devised work with students, disadvantaged youth, and prisoners – pieces that incorporated and validated the stories and experiences of people who are often denied a voice or a sense of legitimacy. In this sense, The Wizard of Oz succeeds wholly, and through its use of physical theatre, dance, music, film, movement, storytelling, poetry, rap and testimonial, it challenges preconceived notions of intellectual and physical ‘disability’ in a manner both poignant and confronting.

This is most frankly achieved with the use of clips from Judy Garland’s 1963 film A Child Is Waiting, in which she plays a teacher at an institution for the so-called “mentally handicapped and emotionally disturbed”. Both the actors and the audience quietly take in black and white scenes of institutional neglect and barbarism, which sit in contrast to the actors’ own vibrant lives and the Technicolor promise of Oz (and whatever else lies over the rainbow) – a thoughtful moment that speaks for itself. 

McCaffrey has achieved something incredibly special with his theatre company. My only quibble is with the strength of the ending. While in hindsight it makes perfect sense, at the time it felt like the piece had been cut off too soon, although this is really a testament to the strength of the rest of the performance. The audience sat a little confused and quiet before realising that it was finished, and during the vigorous applause my partner turned to me and said “that was fantastic. Do you think there’s more?”
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