First, an accolade to Andrew McKenzie for choosing a New Zealand play as his major MTA directing project. It makes so much more sense for new directors to mine their own soil for material.

Stuart Hoar’s first play, Squatter (1987), is certainly a challenge. Set in 1894 on the 84,000 Canterbury acres owned by wealthy landowner Bilstrode, the (dis)order of the day is socio-economic upheaval. As the Playmarket website summarises it: “Everyone has a plot to capitalise or syndicalise or socialise or otherwise own [the land]. Every plot gives rise to another murder, betrayal or counterplot. Revolutionary or pragmatic or cynical socialism and capitalism look strangely similar. Structure and style reinforce the play’s ideas.”

Its initial productions – at Auckland’s Mercury (1987, directed by Sarah Peirse) and Wellington’s Circa (1988, directed by Mervyn Thompson) – were memorable for their production values and strong, committed performances but it remains arguable as to whether the “structure and style reinforces” or obfuscates “the play’s ideas”.

Squatter was written in the early years of Rogernomics – market forces and competition get a strong mention – and amid an upsurge in Mâori land rights campaigns, and clearly intends to resonate on those levels. The Wellington season was staged just months after the 1987 share market crash, when the presence of ‘wide boys’ out to exploit anyone and everyone and coming a cropper in the process was very evident.

Laurie Atkinson (Evening Post) pronounced Thompson’s production “audacious and original … remarkable for its vitality and black humour … the most invigorating play to appear in our theatres since Foreskin’s Lament.” For Ralph McAllister (Dominion), the play was “a conspiracy of excellence set amid cavalcades of corruption.”

McKenzie’s ‘poor theatre’ production – played in the traverse on upside-down off-cuts of carpet with free-standing, and sometimes lying, doorways at either end – is clearly articulated by a cast who, while their experience and talent levels vary considerably, do exude a shared sense of purpose and confidence. This goes a long way towards encouraging us, the audience, to accept their work in good faith, assuming our initial outlay of time and money, and further investments of attention, intellectual enquiry and emotional connection, will finally be rewarded.

That it delivers very little of value – much less than the sum of its parts – is something I ascribe more to the play than this production. Devoid of stunningly dynamic performances and other production elements that may generate interest for their own sakes, the play reveals that in the process of exploring subversion (the converse of settling), it totally subverts itself. While I’m sure if someone wrote a thesis about it they’d divine all sorts of wondrous dimensions and connections between the 1890s and 1980s, the play in performance offers very little for the 165 minutes (including 2 short intervals) we spend attempting to discover the terms of engagement.

That said, it is certainly worth revisiting, in an academic context at least, this early work of a playwright who has gone on to specialise in dramatising the lives and achievements of our international scientists (Rutherford, MacIndoe, Tinsley). In its time it was an important step in the evolution of homegrown plays. Now, as a learning experience for those involved, and for other students of theatre, I sincerely hope it produces more value than the rest of the audience can hope to gain from sitting through it.

See also Ron Kjestrup’s review of Stuart Hoar’s latest stage play, Backwards in High Heels, at Court Two.

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