August 19, 2008

Tall Tales (Some True)
memoirs of an unlikely writer
By Greg McGee
Penguin NZ ISBN (9978 014 300913 9)
Reviewed by John Smythe

The sport of drama and vice versa: whaddarwe?  

In his easy-to-read memoir Greg McGee hits the page puttering from Auckland to Wellington in a borrowed A40 Farina. He’s en-route to the 1980 Playwrights’ Workshop that will become the first major turning point of his hitherto erratic career. Or given where he has placed it, the professional ‘scan’ that pronounces his now legendary first play Foreskin’s Lament viable is the inciting incident: the kick-off point for an intricate web of yarn-spinning that educates, informs and entertains.

Tall Tales (Some True) is a ‘must read’ for anyone who is, was or wants to be part of New Zealand’s theatre, television or film industries, not to mention those with a passion for rugby or even a passionate dislike of it. But this is just the beginning. With a sequel undoubtedly in development, Tall Tales (Some True) ends in Rogernomics-riddled 1988, as New Zealand television embarks on a massive shake-up of its production processes.

Those eight intense years – so much packed in! – play out like a first class rugby match, or rather a range of games of different disciplines with McGee out there in various positions; games that move back, forth and sideways in time, with tight rolling mauls, fast-paced running and passing sequences, and exchanges of kicks at various trajectories, precipitating spectacular scoring, near misses, sometimes questionable penalties and quite a few injuries, some terminal.

McGee’s erudite commentary fills in the historical backstories and the social, political and personal imperatives that drive the ‘on field’ action. Geographically it ranges from Oamaru and Dunedin to Henderson and Ponsonby via Bondi, Perusia, Casale Sul Sile (near Venice), London and the Australian outback – not to mention an incident-packed voyage on the Galileo Galilei which includes a passenger mutiny.

What emerges from the blood, sweat and mud is a critically astute warts-and-all self-portrait of a writer truly rooted in his own soil, attempting – against extraordinary odds sometimes; often in league with admirable partners and/or formidable teams, to whom he gives due credit – to achieve what stage and screen plays were originally invented to do: reflect us to ourselves, interrogate our values and stimulate our funny bones.  

A classic ‘what if?’ arises with the cautionary tale of how, before he had finished Foreskin’s Lament, McGee submitted a short story to the editor of Islands then, having had no response, showed it to a friend who trashed it. Disillusioned with himself he phoned to get his story back only to discover Robin Dudding (the editor) loved it and wanted to publish it. Had he not, the play that became a turning point in our theatrical history might never have been completed.

Other ‘what if’ moments include a ‘boys-will-be-boys’ incident with a .22 rifle that could have ended in tragedy and stuff involving dodgy vehicles and booze that could have changed the face(s) of our screen production industry. Characters are richly described as they play out their roles in our social and cultural history, sometimes with admirable fortitude, sometimes not.

This is a book you converse with: "You what?", "Oh yes, I remember …", "So where was I when that was happening?", "Really? I didn’t know that!", "Ah, that explains it …"

The origins of key elements of Foreskin’s Lament are intriguing and sometimes surprising. Who’d have known the gruff coach Tupper owes something to legendary Dunedin swimming coach Duncan Laing (better known for coaching Danyon Loader and Michael Phelps)?

The pivotal action of the ironically-named Clean and the moral dilemma it generates have their antecedents in a Sicilian head-kicking incident in particular, the dirty tactics of the Canterbury rep team in general (Griz Wylie & co), and a personal experience of being injured by his own team-mate in an All Black trial match. And the lament itself turns out to have been inspired by poet Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.

Then there’s the steep learning curve for a playwright not versed in theatre practice per se, and the priceless stories of some of the directors and actors involved in various productions of his plays, all fearlessly told.

McGee draws this perceptive parallel between sport and drama:
"I suppose you could see sport as the ultimate escape for self, but I never did; I always saw it as the expression of a deeper self, the sporting equivalent of the dramatic sine qua non – to show, not tell. What a privilege to see that kind of truth of character revealed, whether in sport or drama, rather than having to make do with the level of self revealed by small talk when, say, acquaintances meet at the supermarket. A necessary social skill, sure, but if that’s all there is …" (p136)

The 1981 Springbok Tour protests, in which McGee participated fully while confessing to an illicit interest in the outcomes of the matches, plays out as another act in the same story as he and we confront the ever-present core question: whaddarya?

Theatre-wise he also covers Tooth & Claw, which gets its own chapter (in which Out In The Cold is briefly-mentioned too). Described now by its author as "a very dull play", Tooth & Claw premiered before he’d had the benefit of another rigorous playwrights’ workshop, in Australia this time, with the verbally blunt yet editorially sharp John Romeril as dramaturg. Thus the published version is an improvement on what was staged.

A pungent chapter entitled ‘Guru Voodoo’ tracks the attempts of Auckland theatre practitioners to circumvent the Artistic Director-led annually subsidised theatre model, first with the politically idealistic co-operative Working Title Theatre, formed to produce only homegrown work, then with a totally commercial venture backed by a consortium of private investors.

Perhaps the ‘think big’ dream for the premiere of McGee’s fourth play, the satirical Whitemen, with its large cast and challenging production values, owed something to the heady days of the pre-crash 1980s. But the IRD must share the credit with its demand that to qualify for investment incentives Whitemen must at least potentially be able to make a profit in its first season. This ruled out the low-key, out-of-town, small venue tryout that so often initiates long-run commercial blockbusters.

Instead, under-rehearsed to keep down the budget and over-hyped to maximise bookings, Whitemen premiered in the vast His Majesty’s Theatre – where Working Title’s production of the post-1981 Tour update of Foreskin’s Lament had recently done a roaring trade – and bombed ignominiously. (Did the IRD, I wonder, also require investors to risk venture capital on massive manufacturing runs of new product inventions, or did they allow – require, even – a reasonable schedule of research, development and product-testing?)

Meanwhile McGee, at the Australian Playwrights’ Conference, had heeded the advice of UK writer Trevor Griffiths that TV was where the real people were (audience-wise, at least). Despite his instant success with his first play and moderate successes with his next two, McGee had experienced attacks of ‘the voids’ and ‘Freelancer’s Frenzy’. He had also come to realise that playwriting alone could not pay a living wage to someone embarking on marriage and family life with a mortgage. So when opportunities arose to move from "the covered stand to the terraces", as Griffiths described it, he took it: a one-off commission for Loose ENZ, an episode of Mortimer’s Patch, then a whole new series: Roche, co-written with Dean Parker.

And so to a riveting chapter on the evolution of Erebus: the Aftermath, arguably the most fearless, insightful and socio-politically adventurous television drama ever produced in New Zealand, and extremely unlikely to be equalled, or anything like it, in the current environment. Again, this is why drama is made; this is what any healthy society thrives on … And this is what we in New Zealand always manage, compulsively, to comprehensively subvert.

"When a cultural action of come kind – whether it’s a play or a song, a novel, a movie or a mountain being climbed – splashes down in a society," McGee observes quite early in the book, "the spread of ripples is as much about the pool as the size and weight of the stone that lands in it." (p82)

As the various game-plans, acts of spontaneity and clashes with fate play out, Greg McGee reveals that parts of our pond are deeply shallow while others have depths that remain disturbingly dark, long after the splash has lost its sparkle and the ripples have receded.

His penultimate chapter, ‘Ghost Writers in the Sky’, tells of Mirage film projects that never made it to production, notably ‘Love & Money’ that was spookily prescient about the 1987 sharemarket crash and, ironically, was aborted by it.

Speaking of which, the final chapter, "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here", includes extraordinary revelations about Bert Potter’s Centrepoint Community activities, not least those involving an abortion clinic, alongside a vain attempt to get a miniseries up about Michael Fay’s abortive Americas Cup challenges. 

We are left with TVNZ royally ‘Mountered’ and South Pacific Pictures bedding in to lead a brave new world of independent production, where players who used to be colleagues will take to the field in preselection competitions (a.k.a. Network buy-ins) then Possibles v Probables trials, (a.k.a. NZ On Air funding rounds and/or NZ Film Commission investment decisions), competing against each other for places in the next season’s teams …

The world has changed radically, and yet … It’s not the end. The whistle has been blown but it’s just half time. We may think we know what happened next but seeing it all afresh through the eyes of Greg McGee – star player and erudite commentator – is a pleasure to be anticipated. Meanwhile this replay of the first half is essential reading for anyone who wants to know: whaddarwe?