“Some of my best friends have been dolphins” is the opening line of Frank Robson’s Thinking Dolphins, Talking Whales (AH & AW Reed, 1976). He signed my copy in Napier on 6 April 1986 (when I was researching the Opo* story). A thick-set genuine Kiwi bloke, he was even more disillusioned, then, about the way Marineland was treating its captive dolphins than he was when he had chucked his job in December 1968.  

Writer Mark Nicholas has plucked a simple thread from the book’s 196 pages to have Frank share his experience of discovering his ability to communicate telepathically with dolphins (it really is a thing, believe me) and its consequences. He wants to share it with more people so they can learn (he sees dolphins as his teachers). He gets drawn into capturing them for Marineland and is employed to catch their fish (his son becomes the trainer) while dedicating himself to their wellbeing only to fall out with his money-hungry employers.

It has to be said that in Nicholas’s adaptation – developed through the co-writing and dramaturgical input of Anne-Lisa Noordover, Liam Kelly (who plays Frank), Lori Leigh (VUW Mentor), Michael Hockey and director Tabitha Arthur – Robson’s passionate but realistic and pragmatic enquiry into the science, mythology and culture of cetaceans, and their relationships with humans, becomes delightfully fanciful.

The pre-start joy of the cast is palpable as they mill about Nicholas and Noordover’s split set: Frank’s rumpty living area stage left; a shed-like Foley sound effect set-up stage right – lit and operated by Isadora Lao. The sound is designed, and some of it created live on mic, by Tadgh ‘Teag’ McKay.

Kelly’s fisherman Frank is grounded yet light and enlightened as he shares his ‘midlife crisis’ story. The cleverly crafted puppet dolphins (made by Nicholas and Noordover) are playfully operated and personified by Ethan Kalani Morse (as Horace), Eliis Uudeküll (Daphne) and Felix Crossley-Pritchard (Kara and Dipper). They actually get to converse with Frank in this version.

Horace (Fred in the book) is Frank’s first close friend in the open ocean. The account of his fate and actions when the powers that be decide to deepen the harbour with dynamite offers an early insight into the conflicting human v dolphin value-systems and what may be seen as the dolphin’s fatal flaw: trust.

Simple devices are utilised by the ensemble to manifest the sea, Frank’s boat and the buoy then ‘Tiny Dancer’ boat Horace falls in love with in his quest for a mate, a boat v dolphin pod race … We readily become wreathed in the beatific smiles anyone who has encountered dolphins will recall.

The idea that Marineland came about to fend off some corporate desire to make cat food from dolphins is built up from a brief bit of musing in the book into an entirely fanciful but wittily composed and choreographed commercial jingle for ‘Fluffies Dolphin Mix’.

Similarly the fact that it’s hard to capture a dolphin that doesn’t want to be caught has evolved into a scenario that almost has them asking to go to Marineland. Trust and love transcend the nitty gritty of the somewhat less poetic process Robson describes in his book.

The capacity of the stained glass dome is well exploited to glow red as the increasingly malevolent ‘voice of Marineland’ (Lao) dominates from on high. Hand-held torches are also used to great effect.

The current becomes a metaphor as questions of choice are confronted. Overall one man’s life-changing encounter with dolphins is delightfully dramatised to explore and express the time quests for money v happiness; commercial profit v connection and compassion. It is cause for celebration that Marineland closed to the public in 2008.
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*OPO The Peace Monster (shameless plug).

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