Fragments from extensive interviews show desperation felt by ordinary people

Among the moving testimonies of people affected by family violence is the voice of a police officer who speaks with the penetrating clarity born of day-to-day experience as he explains that you can’t fix a problem by arresting people and that to fix something you have to understand it.

Hush is a compelling attempt to throw light on the persistent forces that drive family violence. The show presents fragments from an extensive series of interviews with people who have experienced family violence, and analysis from those professionally involved in dealing with the after-effects. [More]
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Four women and two men collectively portray sixteen roles: survivors, social workers and professionals in the field of family violence. Beginning as a ‘practical research’ project funded by the University of Otago Research Grant, the company chose what they saw to be ‘perhaps the most important issue vexing contemporary New Zealand society’.

For material, the cast and director interviewed a cross section of people around Otago about their experiences dealing with family violence. The interviews were recorded on video and studied by the cast to recreate their gestures, and then performed live with the interview soundtrack playing in their ears through iPods, so that every inflection, pause and stutter is recounted verbatim.

It would be hard to measure but one hopes that this modern form of ‘documentary theatre’ can provide the catalyst for making some real differences in the lives of people to whom these stories are most relevant. The use of the iPod medium may seem affected but the result is surprisingly effective, giving more naturalism to the actors’ performances than you could hope to achieve through ‘regular’ type acting. 

The total non-embellishment and the frankness of the accounts offers a kind of safety and serenity, so that anyone watching who has Family Violence issues of their own may potentially get to consider their situation with a new objectivity in this realistic yet unthreatening environment. 

The upshot of the broad ranging testimonies is spelt out by the GP, portrayed by Hilary Halba: there is no simple way of diagnosing these kinds of problems in their early stages, making any kind of real binding social solution unlikely to be reached, in the short term certainly. There’s a better chance with physical abuse victims, but mental and emotional violence can be all but impossible to identify in the doctor’s office, or for that matter to prove in a court of law. 

Notably only two characters in the lineup are definitive perpetrators of abuse, as opposed to – or as well as – victims. Doug (Danny Still) the taxi driver found himself repeating the violence that was a way of life growing up with his own father, eventually recognising the fact and taking appropriate action to break the cycle. Jessie (Nadya Shaw Bennett) is a less common perpetrator, having wilfully abused her own mother from quite a young age with no apparent cyclic motivation, just a self-declared need to be in control. 

Only one performer plays a single part: Cindy Diver’s Rose sits centre stage, quite relaxed, almost bubbly, as she relates her unfathomably awful and tragically typical tale of abuse on all levels by her father and then her husband. 

Overall, under the direction of Stuart Young, the cast perform their varied roles with dignity and aplomb, avatars that they are for the research subjects’ voices of experience. 

Martyn Roberts’ set and lighting design works well as a metaphor for the state of our nation’s communities with regard to this prevalent and persistent issue: Nine chairs and a sofa, desks, tables and assorted other furniture accessories create a slightly pinched, claustrophobic setting, and the centre stage play-mat strewn with toys and a glowing dollhouse emphasises the fact that, for all the reported cases, hundreds more go on behind closed doors; out of sight, out of mind.

Following the performance, when audiences are offered the opportunity to ask questions and offer feedback to the company, the process of creating the work and its implications are openly discussed.
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A university research grant has made possible this extraordinary project. Hush is a documentary play, created from actual interviews on domestic violence here in Otago, conducted by the production team.

Verbatim theatre is not new, but this is something extra special – the actors, in their determination to remain faithful to the interviewees, perform using iPods, speaking the words as they hear them. Thus they are able to deliver their lines not merely accurately, but with the very inflections, pauses, and anacoluthons. Gestures, too, have been replicated from the filmed recordings.

The subjects, or characters, are both survivors and perpetrators of family violence, and also those who counsel them. Their courage and honesty is palpable, and presents a massive challenge to the performers.

Fortunately six fine actors lend their talents to the project. Cindy Diver is a central figure, infinitely touching as Rose, sodomised as a child, raped as a wife, yet retaining a shining hopefulness. Danny Still, meanwhile, does full justice to the down-to-earth humour of Doug, depressingly predictable in that he shifts from abused to abuser.

Seasoned professionals Simon O’Connor and Hilary Halba are impeccable not only as some of those directly involved in violence, but as the doctor, the policeman, and the psychotherapist who see the results, and try to make sense of it all.

Promising young Nadya Shaw Bennett is chillingly credible as the girl who, from infancy, terrorises her family, and Erica Newlands also convinces as her desperate mother. These are the only two who share the same story, although the individual testimonies have been shaped and intertwined to create the impression of progress, at least.

The superb lighting by Martyn Roberts allows the separate acting areas to appear to float against the dark, positioned round a doll’s house with the contents spilled across the floor. This reminder of the casual destruction of innocence is pertinent, and the topic of course has appalling relevance throughout New Zealand.

The production values are altogether impressive, and Stuart Young and his team bring passion and integrity to their research project. But is documentary theatre, pursued with such veracity, ‘real’ acting or not? This complex production should polarise those who are fascinated by the ‘theatre is truth’/ ‘theatre is artifice’ debate, and it comes with the bonus of a very frank forum afterwards.

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