I hate reviews that give the details of the plot away in the first paragraph, but given that The Night Visitors makes its premiere performance during the Oamaru Scott 100 festival, I think I can be forgiven if I reveal that the storyline pivots on Scott’s doomed bid to be the first to reach the North Pole.

According to the programme, The Night Visitors was commissioned especially for this festival, which commemorates the 1913 return of the ship, the Terra Nova, following the discovery of Scott’s death.

Although this play commemorates an actual historical incident, the return and the tragedy that precipitates it happen off stage. As in his previous play, Meet the Churchills (which premiered at Circa Theatre in 2011), playwright Paul Baker balances fact and fiction as he tells the story of a late night visit made by two members of the returning 1910 British Antarctic Expedition to the Harbourmaster’s house in Oamaru.

While that visit is documented, little is known about the actual events of that night or the people involved. Baker is thus able to weave a very intimate story of a fragmented and fractious family through an imaginative re-telling of an historical event that is firmly set in Oamaru.

On one level this play is a delightful comedy, with a tongue-in-cheek nod and wink to its specific audience. It was an astonishing experience to sit among a packed audience laughing uproariously at in-jokes aimed specifically – and proudly – at a regional audience. Just for that alone, Baker’s play can be considered a triumph of community theatrical story-telling, and one that the sold-out season attests has struck a real chord with his audience.   

On another, it shows the shattering impact, upon a sensitive young adolescent trapped in a society which values rugby over reading, of this contact with a wider world in which scientific discoveries and exploration are valued and encouraged. 

On another level, this is a play about religious belief: about God and the power of nature; about the commercialism of celebrity, and – most striking in a play rooted both literally and culturally in good Scottish Presbyterianism – about suffering and the “stench of martyrdom.”

Director Patrick Davies is to be congratulated for his skilful navigation of this complex layering. The pace never falters; snappy dialogue and strong characterisation make for a rich and satisfying theatrical experience. 

Perhaps as a result of this complexity, Baker relies, however, on some very conventional tropes of characterisation. The Harbourmaster’s wife, Mrs Enid Forrest, is an example of the monstrous mothers found so often in New Zealand literature whose narrow domestic tyranny and insistence on empty forms of religious convention constrains and deforms the emotional life of (mostly) her sons. See, for example, Maurice Gee’s In My Father’s Den, and most of the maternal figures in Frank Sargeson. Mrs Forrest is, however, played with such charm and verve by Caroline Claver that we forgive her for these qualities. As indeed, we forgive Captain Edgar Forrest – a robust and extremely professional performance from Jon Pheloung – for his equally conventional arc from hen-picked husband to figure of quiet authority.

In fact, all the performances are conspicuously good. Nathan Mudge (Master Jack Forrest) and Cody McRae (Master Cecil Forrest) are extremely believable as feuding siblings. The relationship between Jack and Surgeon Lieutenant Adams (Francis Biggs) is an especially complex one, and much of the impact of the second half relies on our recognition of the depth of Jack’s hero-worship.

A key scene in which Adams, who is deeply damaged by his traumatic experiences and his discovery of Scott’s body, draws Jack into his icy interior landscape is handled with great dexterity and supported by an excellent lighting and sound design (by Davies and producer Megan Peacock Coyle).

Mention must also be made of Richard Huber, whose Lieutenant Kerr does not subscribe to the hero worship of Scott, and consequently gets some marvellously acerbic dialogue.

While Baker’s dialogue is fabulously entertaining, and I particularly enjoyed the comic contrast between rough colonial society and ‘home’ (at one point a character calls Oamaru “a progressive new society … none of your old vices here”), I felt that there was some conflict between the domestic comedy and the intricate thematic density of this piece. Some sections could easily be cut, especially the “tit for tat” domestic wrangling between Captain and Mrs Forrest, as it dilutes the overall intensity.

These concerns aside, The Night Visitors is a significant piece of New Zealand theatre, written by a playwright of considerable skill. A recent Fortune Theatre newsletter indicates that they are also interested in producing this play.  I certainly hope so, as The Night Visitors fully deserves further opportunities and a much longer season.

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