Amid a plethora of impressive directing credits, Kerryn Palmer has facilitated some important devised works. Her 24/7 Project plays for BATS/STAB seasons – Sniper (2004) and Pandemic (2013) – and Adrift (2012) with students of Victoria University Theatre 323 have preceded this ‘311 THEA’ work: MY SHOUT: Another Round at the Thistle Inn. All but Sniper are site-specific, drawing stories that radiate from them back into their nuclei.

A lot of history has passed through the Thistle Inn since 1840, when Scottish land and property developer William Cooper realised Port Nicholson desperately lacked a pub. He is one of the many identities we meet on a tour of the inn’s many rooms; identities who also appear in the 12-course menu of scenarios that then play out in the main bar.

Of course the packed-in audience needs to be divided into groups to take the ‘prologue’ tour while the rest remain in the bar, chatting amongst themselves. I feel lucky to have sat near the piano where Joel Rudolph accompanies songstresses Ashleigh Dixon and Ruby Kemp singing old-time favourites like ‘Lilli Marlene’, ‘Tit Willow’ and ‘We’ll Meet Again’. Because their unamplified voices can only be heard by a few, and some of us are waiting a long time to go on our tour, I can’t help but wonder if a full-frontal singalong with song-sheets might not be in order.

Nevertheless a bartender (Matthew Staijen-Leach) and barmaid (Charlotte Simpson) are chattily attentive until a highly excited innkeeper (Adeline Saddick) welcomes our group up the stairs that rise above the quaint little reception nook. Tyson (Keegan Bragg) and Rochelle (Adele Tunnicliff) are our guides but it is only we who see the ‘ghosts’ in the rooms they show us through.

The fully present Rosabel (Ruby Hansen) is obsessed with Katherine Mansfield and imagines a tryst between Katherine (Samantha Tippet) and her lover (Rachel Graham). The Georges Room is being festooned with bunting and we are asked to help prepare for the ‘Welcome Home Boys’ party by Peggy (Sarah Burton), Lynny (Rachel Graham), Barbara (Suzanne Trye) and her boy Donnie (Liam Kelly) – until a telegram brings news the ship has been quarantined.

Our encounter with William Cooper (Nick Rowell) enthuses us with the potential awaiting this land until we realise the money he used to build this pub came from buying Māori whenua in Porirua for a few blankets, tobacco and the like, then reselling it to Settlers at a quick profit (so what has changed?).  

The Rangatira whose enigmatic presence reminds us there is a different side to Cooper’s story reappears, back down in the bar, as Te Rauparaha (James Forster). His arrival sends the staff and customers scuttling for cover, which bemuses him. The settler-equivalent of urban myths about his exploits are counterpointed with Te Rauparaha’s apparently true story of how he got his name. This exemplifies the clever dramaturgy that permeates the show.

Pitting the ancient canoe-hauling chant, ‘Tōia Mai Te Waka’ against ‘God Save the Queen’ as a reverberant undertone, rather than as a pitched battle, segues powerfully into the next item on the menu: ‘Settlers Angst 1840: Classic European dish, goes best with port’. A litany of complaints is served up about the new colony falling short of what was promised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s New Zealand Company.

On Anniversary Day 1855 a powerful earthquake (8.2, centred in the Wairarapa) alters the Wellington landscape even more – and the ‘Wellington Crumble’ rumble sound-effect produced by the cast is disconcertingly effective.

A quartet of splendidly rendered original songs, largely group-devised, peppers the menu, the first being a university drinking song (which, given its place in the timeline, should be referenced to Victoria College, founded in 1897; it didn’t become Victoria University of Wellington until 1962).

Actually, to be pedantic, its rendition is therefore premature for the 1893 ‘Sheppard’s Pie’ scene, featuring Kate Sheppard (Felicity Newburry) and her suffragettes, conflated as they were with The Women’s Christian Temperance Union. There is a nice irony, however, in their meeting in a tavern to discuss the evils of the demon drink. And the suffragette’s success in winning the vote for women is very well marked.

Moving on into the 20^th century, Katherine Mansfield is further celebrated with an item entitled ‘Triple Entente, 1906’ (wasn’t the alliance between France, Great Britain and Russia formed in 1907 – or have I missed a point?). It’s here I realise I’m at a disadvantage being near the piano as its gentle accompaniment of this scene makes soft voices even harder to hear. The sense of drastic change, however – of being able “to unlace a bodice without censure” – is well conveyed.

The ‘Great Strike’ of 1913 is exemplified with the dockside workers coming up against a comical constabulary-led insistence that the wharves must be kept open to keep the economy moving: cue amusingly slo-mo fight sequence. And it’s not too long before the men are moving onto troop ships bound for Egypt and ‘The Great War’.

The myth of Malone reaches the Thistle Inn in the scene entitled ‘Anzac Stew 1918: Braised in rich yesteryear sauce’. Then there’s a sudden leap (over the Depression) to ‘Victory Roast 1945: Heart-warming favourite made with all the love of the past’. Now young Donnie is four years older and is re-introduced to his father.

A lump come to my throat on witnessing both the joy of an unexpected return and a lone woman waiting in vain to see her man arrive only to have another soldier whisper in her ear. It’s always impressive to have such emotions provoked by a subtly-portrayed silent moment.

1951 pits ‘job-for-life’ railroad workers against the waterfront workers and their families suffering the consequences of the infamous lockout. It is salutary to be reminded how little human compassion prevailed in those so-called ‘good old days’.

Apparently the Thistle Inn was a magnet for the criminal underworld in the early 1980s, personified by a fictionalised Big Mama (Felicity Newburry). Not only is this a novel context for her son Carl (Finn Shepherd) to bring his anti-Springbok Tour protesters into but it happens on the very day the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana dominates the media. This makes for a rich stew of value systems.

A poignant moment of tribute to a Thistle regular called Andrew leads into Te Rauparaha getting the last word. Claiming ‘most legendary’ status, he regales us with the kumara pit story that engendered his enduring ‘Ka Mate’ haka before the student drinking song brings the show to an end.

Presented by a highly committed and fully focused cast, MY SHOUT: Another Round at the Thistle Inn packs an astonishing amount of history into an astutely modulated show. Director Kerryn Palmer and her assistants Hannah Banks and Finn Shepherd have facilitated a show that proves the full spectrum of human experience is present within our local history. (Helen Pearse-Otene and Te Rākau Theatre have explored this even more so.)

I believe the 7pm shows tonight (Monday) and tomorrow (Tuesday) are sold out but there may still be space for the extra 9pm show on Tuesday 31^st May. 

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