I am often surprised that there is not more New Zealand theatre inspired by courageous lris Wilkinson, brilliant journalist and poet, who took the pen name Robin Hyde, took the lovers she chose, and finally took her own life. Our very own Virginia Woolf; our Sylvia Plath. 

I don’t mean to sound flippant. Iris Wilkinson compels admiration, both as a writer and as an audacious woman in a challenging period of social change. Her adventures, whether as a child trying to make sense of the adult world, or as an intrepid journalist in war-torn China, are astounding. Her poetry at its best is richly lyrical. I am not surprised she has obsessed musician Pete Stewart until he brought her back to life in this wistful and haunting work, the perfect wind-down after a frenetic day of Fringe-viewing. 

In many ways Iris epitomises the racy years between the wars, the 1920s and 30s, when the arts were gloriously experimental and women were fighting for a new place in the world.  Her short life was packed with powerful emotional experience.  Outstanding as a writer even at school in Wellington, she scored a job on the Dominion newspaper aged only seventeen.  In those days a bastion of male supremacy, the Dominion expected her to focus on frothy nonsense for the women’s pages, and turned a blind eye to her inevitable seduction by a senior editor.  

When she was eighteen, botched treatment after an injury to her knee left her in constant pain and dependant on opiates. Her first great love consequently deserted her to sail by himself ‘Home’ to England, where (like Katherine Mansfield) Iris had yearned to travel.  Instead she suffered an illegitimate pregnancy resulting in a stillborn son, whom she named Robin Hyde. She adopted the name herself, ‘to give it significance’, and threw herself into her work.  

A prolific and sometimes slapdash writer, she was nevertheless hailed as one of our emerging poets along with ARD Fairburn, RAK Mason and Eileen Duggan. Her journalistic work was often subversive, as she became increasingly socialist and feminist, and embraced the Māori cause. She published books as well, and The Godwits Fly, her extraordinarily honest autobiographical novel, broke new ground in New Zealand literature.

Hyde’s career, her life and tragic death at thirty-three, offer a positive embarrassment of dramatic material, but Pete Stewart has made a judicious selection of some of her most evocative poems and further enhanced them by setting them to music. These are given a soft, dream-like delivery by singer Vebka, sometimes spiked with little quirky moments of humour – “the bored faces of the fish waiting to be fried” – but more often with grief and longing: “Drive me away, you are my people yet.” A magical artist, Vebka possesses an unusual, mesmerising voice that makes me think of wind sighing through macrocarpa trees.

Interspersed also are fascinating excerpts Stewart has chosen from Hyde’s letters, novels, and newspaper articles.  They are read with great sensitivity by Kiri Bell, who forces nothing on us but, with intelligent simplicity, allows Iris to reveal herself.  

Some passages are shocking, like her account of war atrocities in China; some funny, like her tongue-in-cheek description of the art of eyebrow plucking for the Ladies’ Page; and some quite heart-breaking, like her letter for his eighth birthday to the second-born son she loves but has virtually abandoned.

My guest, who like singer Vebka hails from Germany, knows little or nothing of Hyde, yet is utterly caught up in her story. “So super-sad,” she tells me happily.  I shall take her to see Hyde’s Memorial Plaque in the Octagon. Entranced by the dreamy music, we are both inspired to read more of her work. 

Perhaps The Iris Project will introduce Iris Wilkinson to a new generation. Surely if modern women knew her, they would revere her. The Slutty Ladies, for instance, whose garden party I attended on Sunday, would have heartily approved of her courageous lifestyle: her taking of lovers where she would, her refusal to let her gender define or limit her, and her determination to live the life she chose.  

I leave the theatre in a pleasantly melancholy state of mind, Hyde’s last words lingering, from her own poem Ebb Tide, but surely also her epitaph:
“Why shall we say, ‘She is dead?’
She merely slipped from the power of trivial things, 
To the power of deepening waters, of lucent wings.”

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

The Iris Project is a multimedia project featuring video, music and spoken passages presenting the life and works of writer Iris Wilkinson/ Robin Hyde (1906-1939). It’s a coolish night when I enter the church – St Peters on Willis, Wellington – to find around 10 or so people seated.

Musicians Vibka, Peter Stewart and church organist Dianne Halliday are accompanied by narrator Kiri Bell, to tell the story of Hyde.

For most of The Iris Project, I find myself asking if making a life of art is enough to make art of a life? Perhaps that’s harsh because everyone’s life has worth and is worthy. I guess for me, is it interesting enough to warrant this much attention? I don’t wish to be disrespectful because I am not familiar with Robin Hyde’s work. It’s just that after seeing this, my interest isn’t piqued.

I want to like it and yes, there are moments. But they are just too few for me to care about. I find myself wondering if a different venue or time would make it more interesting, and I think they would. [It will play at Fortune Studio in Dunedin – ed]  

What is the connection of all these parts: venue, video, words, music? How do they serve the work or my emotional connection to it? How will it make me care? St Peters on Willis, though fantastic, makes me wonder how it relates to the work. While the organ is played, it never really busts out or roars through the night, as I expect. In which case, if it’s not the organ, why present this piece is here? Why not in one of Wellington’s many cafes, or theatre spaces?

This work calls for an intimacy a near empty church on a cool, dark Wellington night just doesn’t seem to serve. Yet it feels very claustrophobic and towards the end a little depressive.

My companion suggests the work needs more light and shade. And I agree there is a sameness to its tone and rhythm. That isn’t to take anything away from the care and obvious passion that sits here for these performers. Only you don’t feel it from them. No chemistry. No passion. The energy is very inwards and it’s hard for us as the audience to even engage.

Yes, there is some musical variation in some parts and the video playing to organ accompaniment provides some relief through the showing of photographs relevant to Hyde’s life. Only instead of drawing me closer it sends me away further and it all just leaves me wondering why? Why this poet? Why this story? What is it about this writer’s life that requires this kind of examination?

As I am leaving I ask the videographer, why this poet, why her life? And he says because she’s amazing. When I ask something else, I am interrupted by the pianist with what to me seems like the first burst of enthusiasm I have felt all night. So, it is there. 

It was opening night. It may have been nerves. I suggest you go to it yourselves. Perhaps your experience will be better. I hope so. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer