When I was at high school in the late 1990s touring performances were met with equal parts excitement and trepidation – excitement as we were skipping a period of class, and trepidation as they were almost always very sincere and borderline-patronising shows with a ‘message’ about sex, drugs or bullying.

Not so EnsembleImpact’s Womanz Work. Despite its rather uninspiring title, the show is a vibrant and entertaining presentation of some of the best plays from Kiwi female playwrights. No moralising, no condescension, just an hour of energetic and engaging theatre. 

Womanz Work, like previous schools’ shows from EnsembleImpact, is made up of excerpts from 12 New Zealand plays, ranging from small vignettes to longer monologues and scenes from authors such as Briar Grace-Smith, Geraldine Brophy and Georgina Titheridge. The plays were well chosen in terms of their breadth of tone and content and there is a strong sense of clarity despite the rapid transitions.

The performance succeeds in large part because it treats its teenage audience as intelligent adults and doesn’t shy away from swearing and sexual content, none of which feels gratuitous or out of place. Once the initial “can they say that at a school?” shock factor passed during a wonderfully pitched excerpt from Vivienne Plumb’s The Wife Who Spoke Japanese In Her Sleep it felt that the audience – made up of 16 and 17 year olds – realised that they were being talked to, not at.

The showis presented in a ‘no frills’ format – in the traverse, up close, with no lights, no sound, and little in the way of costumes and props – and this works in the actors’ favour. The young cast – made up of Toi Whakaari graduates Chantelle Brader, Shadon Meredith, Richard Osborne and Bianca Seinafo – manage their rapid changes of character and tone with aplomb.

The layout of the performance space allows for a comfortable intimacy with the audience, and the students (and teachers!) responded particularly well to Osborne’s on-the-nose characterisations of a racist old man, a 14 year old boy obsessed with masturbation, and an Emperor Penguin.  

As an audience member, given the piece’s peripatetic shifts from play to play, some sort of initial or post-performance context would have been valuable – even an indication of where the material had come from or who the actors were. However, as I attended a performance at a Christchurch school which is currently hosting another school’s students (St Bede’s hosting Marian College), it may well be that such an introduction was lost in the muddle. The performers certainly shouldn’t be faulted for it. 
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I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged. – Peter Brook from ‘The Deadly Theatre’, a chapter from The Empty Space 1968. 

Brook’s seminal work was written to some extent as a response to the existentialist’s yearning question ‘is the theatre really dead?’ – a query being posed even in popular song by Paul Simon. Brook masticated the contemporary theatre experience and regurgitated it in four bits entitled Deadly Theatre, Holy Theatre, Rough Theatre and Immediate Theatre, as food for our hungry souls. Mother Bird had spoken!

Drama rooms in secondary schools have a sameness about them that can be both cosily welcoming and irritatingly bothersome. As places where young people make discoveries about themselves and their place in the universe, where drama teaching and theatre creation happen in tandem, they can be exciting, yet the posters and wall decorations, the black drapes and the cleaning product odour have a uniformity about them that cleverly disguises just where in the world you might be.

But they are empty spaces, by and large, and I love them for this. 

The drama room at Baradene College of the Sacred Heart in Auckland is no exception so when I turned up there at 8.40am on Wednesday 8 June, 2011 to see EnsembleImpact perform Womanz Work! I felt quite at home (because, from 1977 to 1979 I was a member of the Theatre Corporate Theatre in Education team which toured North Island secondary schools and from 1980 to 1997 I continued this work with my own companies; drama rooms, school halls, school libraries and the odd classroom have always been my workplace du jour.)

I was greeted by the sight of four fit, attractive, black clad young people ahhhing and p-p-p-pipping their way through a serious warm-up. After momentary introductions they went back to their work and I hid in a corner to contemplate the situation. It’s 2011 and I’m sitting in a well-equipped and well-appointed drama room at a classy private school for girls and I’m experiencing déjà vu, as Yogi Berra said, ‘all over again’. 

This performing for kids in their school environment has something of a history in New Zealand, a proud history in fact, and most of our seasoned professionals have done this at some time or other. [See below for a potted history of schools touring in NZ.]

So, to be at Baradene waiting excitedly for a peep at this latest generation, was a real buzz.

The EnsembleImpact vision, as stated on their website, is individual artists, committed to and working together within a company-based ensemble. Ensemble. I have to admit I like that word.

The website goes on to say: We are all experienced professional theatre practitioners – some more practised than others – for whom live performance is a primary passion. We are actors, directors, designers, and technicians; we are teachers of acting, directing and technical crafts: all of whom have opted to work in an ensemble way, where our philosophies and professional standards of best practice are mutually agreed on and underpin our working strategy – doing what we do, but challenging ourselves in an atmosphere which encourages risk, growth, and the pursuit of excellence.

OK, so who are these experienced professional theatre practitioners? A selection, from the website again: Donagh Rees, Erin Banks, KC Kelly, Gavin Rutherford, Adam Brookfield, Peter Hambleton and Jude Gibson … There are more, and equally impressive, names but this was enough to establish a big slice of cred for me. These people I know personally, and they are exactly what they say they are: experienced professional theatre practitioners. KC Kelly would have been enough. Jude Gibson … these are our best teachers, our best practitioners. They know their own business and, more importantly, they know the business of education.

EnsembleImpact’s show is called Womanz Work! 

Womanz Work! is a series of cleverly interwowen scenes from plays written by New Zealand women playwrights: Vivienne Plumb, Whiti Hereaka, Lynda Chanwai-Earle, Angie Farrow, Georgina Titheridge, Briar Grace-Smith, Mel Johnston, Dianna Fuemana, Beatrice Joblin, Jo Randerson and Geraldine Brophy.

The performers are Chantelle Brader, Richard Osborne, Shadon Meredith and Bianca Seinafo, all graduates of Toi Whakaari. The director is KC Kelly. 

I wanted to ask why a work featuring women writers was directed by a man but it was a momentary consideration and not important so I let it slide. Blokes can do anything, I surmised. Having a clear recollection of Kelly’s work while he was a fixture in the Court company I had no doubt he’d have thought this through so I left it at that. He is, after all, a skilled and talented practitioner. 

The programme blurb acknowledges Toi Whakaari, a number of Creative Communities funds, Pub Charities, Playmarket, Creative New Zealand and a whole bunch of other clever sponsors. Well done EnsembleImpact, sponsorship and funding doesn’t come easy. 

The Baradene girls, about fifty of them, filed politely in and sat on either side of the bare stage. It’s in traverse. They looked at each other across the empty space with no hint of embarrassment. Nice girls these. The show started with no introduction. 

The first slice of this delicious pie is from Angie Farrow’s Falling, which Hickory Beaumont (Chantelle Brader) is doing. Splendidly, I must add. This quirky piece sets the tone for the 55 minute show and it’s all fun from here.  

While the Baradene audience never wavered from ‘nice’ they also never held back when it came to freely expressing themselves, responses which ranged from hysterical laughter to absolute silence. These young women knew what it meant to be an audience and drank up every nuance that was on offer (loud reviewer applause for Baradene and Verity Davidson, the charming HOD). 

Performed by Bianca Seinafo, Mel Johnson’s delicate solo, from I’m Having It Off With Ajax (published in The Women’s Play Press collection Red Light Means Stop, 2003), the first of a number of solos, is beautifully stated and sweetly directed.

As an aside I have to say that these snippets are so very actable – and so well acted – that they seem to have chosen themselves, but a serious word of praise is due for the selection process. All are fabulous choices.

Vivienne Plumb’s The Wife Who Spoke Japanese in Her Sleep is one of my favourite New Zealand plays and Howard and Honey are already iconic characters, here wonderfully created by Chantelle Brader and Richard Osborne. They are Pinteresque yet with a sprinkling of Bruce Mason that brings them home. It was also a reminder of how we make stuff up to reinforce our more radical – in this case racist – beliefs. Very fine stuff from both actors, and an indication that Osborne is someone to watch. (If he was a racehorse … )

Flat Out Brown by Briar Grace-Smith could be sub-titled ‘One Night Out Tagging’ and has South Auckland written all over it. It’s cunning narrative manipulation by Grace-Smith and homie performances as good as you’ll ever see by Shadon Meredith (Culture) and Bianca Seinafo (Niwa). In archetypal schools performance fashion, these young actors could write a book on a thousand different things to do with a cap! Flat Out Brown really resonated with the Baradene girls who lifted the roof in recognition.

There follows an equally funny, but in this case rather black, snatch of Sit On It, a new play by Georgina Titheridge. It’s about clubbing, peeing, vomiting, binge drinking and boys in the little girl’s room. While not knowing this play it seems to have an immediacy that is enormously attractive and reading it will be a priority. Again, fine performances from Seinafo, Osborne and Brader.

Our young people today experience sex and death in ways my generation never did. Car crashes, drugs, suicide and depression are close companions to almost all of them. Whiti Hereaka’s For Johnny looks at living and loving, dying, grief and grieving in an endearingly open and bittersweet way and the audience responded in kind with silence and, where appropriate, wry knowing smiles. (Shadon Meredith joins the other three for this.)

Geraldine Brophy (The Viagra Monologues) is a naughty, naughty girl, and we should all be really happy about that. Richard Osborne certainly seems to be as he grabs by the balls every wicked moment of his outrageous solo which just happens to be about masturbation, the penis, more masturbation, dicks, playing with himself, jerking off and – wait for it – more masturbation. From an audience perspective, it’s a case of what happens in the drama room stays in the drama room but, suffice it to say, a lot of fun was had by all. 

Bianca Seinafo, a very rich talent, has the privilege of playing Fisi from Dianna Fuemana’s Mapaki. Written and performed first as a one woman show by Fuemana herself, this snip includes Shadon Meredith as the otherwise invisible Jason which adds a dimension of depth. This is lovely intimate work from two fine young talents. 

There’s that old theatre adage that says never perform with animals or children. For 2011, please add penguins, and possibly Richard Osborne. Linda Chanwai-Earle’s Heat has John (Meredith) and Stella (Brader) snowed in with only Bob the penguin for company. John has had enough of Bob the penguin but Stella is committed to caring for him. Bob the penguin is quite the best (and funniest) animal act I’ve ever seen and the Baradene girls seemed to agree. I know John and Stella and their relationship issues were well placed and effective but Bob … well, with Bob on stage, no-one else stood a chance. Very, very good work from all three. 

A note at this point about participation. At no point do any of the ensemble leave the stage so each actor is visible throughout. Often in situations like this the non-participating actor sits as though invisible not responding to the action around them. Not so in Womanz Work! It was really refreshing to see actors off-stage enjoying the work of the on-stage ensemble with such pleasure. 

Beatrice Joblin’s Ladies a Plate is also a touching commentary on grief though presented, in this instance, through the medium of food. Chantelle Brader’s solo reflection on death and how we ritualise and personalise the experience to give it meaning is both poignant and fragile. Pitched as it is against the naked space and all the outward distractions of the school environment, she draws us into her jelly crystal world and holds us there until she chooses to let us go.

Jo Randerson is one of my favourite writers and her Good Night The End is a super way to conclude this fusion of witty works. The Grim Reaper, when he finally appears, should be exactly like this, mad, paranoid and with a scythe that is completely out of control.

Beautifully directed throughout and with room to grow and breathe – essential for a touring work of this nature – Womanz Work! is an excellent introduction for students to our exceptional female writing talent. 

With performances of real quality, Womanz Work! is also a great advertisement for Toi Whakaari and the excellent work that our foremost provider of tertiary education in theatrecraft is doing. Any student considering this course of study can’t help but be impressed. 

I started this review by talking about Peter Brook and the empty space. Performing for kids in schools is the most important work that performing artist’s do. It allows kids to get a feel for what actors are about, what the theatre is and it introduces them, in their own backyard, to the world of what’s possible. It shows them that what they do when they play, with minimal set and props and maximizing their imaginations, is a valid behavioural choice for life and, for those who want it, a career.

It’s bare boards, it’s passion, it’s the creative expression we all crave and it’s done, mostly, in an empty space. 

And all the stuff about the past (see below)? That is to validate the work that Bianca, Chantelle, Richard and Shadon are setting out to do, to contextualize it for them, to allow them to enjoy their whakapapa and to relish the opportunity. It is also to honour KC, the writers and the EnsembleImpact team as a whole. They are true professionals and we should all salute them.

When there’s heaps to do it’s good to know that there is also heaps to be proud of and these guys are a part of that history. They’re writing the next chapter and, in forty years might be in my privileged position as a recorder of this achievement. 

As for the show, if Womanz Work! is never done, I’ll say amen to that! 
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A potted history of schools touring

In the ’60’s, ’70’s and ’80’s there was funding available through the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Performers in Schools Fund, most of which went to the established theatres, who all, at some time or other, had schools companies.

For some of this time there were innovative employment initiatives such as PEP (Project Employment Programme) and TEP (Temporary Employment Programme) schemes that sustained other projects at full wages for actors and theatre staff and these were available to performing arts groups and widely used.  

CAT, under David Smiles, was based at Four Season’s Theatre in Whanganui and many of our finest actors got their start touring schools with CAT. A vast number of kids got their first taste of live theatre when the CAT company purred into town and their visits were greatly anticipated by teachers and children alike. 

The establishment of Raymond Hawthorne’s innovative Theatre Corporate model in the early ’70’s saw two groups, one for primary schools and one for secondary, regularly tour the North Island with Story Theatre presenting a pastiche of stories from around the globe to the young ones and the Theatre in Education company, working in secondary schools with a show for every level, introducing students to themed shows about such things as violence (The Mark of Cain), New Zealand literature (John Givens’ The Mountain and the Game) and the classics in hour-long bites (Pygmalion, King Lear, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice).

Unlike CAT which was a ‘kitchen sink’ company, the Theatre Corporate teams travelled light utilising multi-purpose costumes, props and sets in teams of five or six who had developed a recognisable corporate house-style.

It should be remembered that this was the good old days when base theatres such as the Mercury, Downstage, the Court, and the Fortune Theatre’s had venue funding and resident companies, unlike today where short term contracts and the pick-up company model rule and funding cannot be used to pay for ‘bricks and mortar’.

The other major difference between ‘then’ and ‘now’ was the existence of regional theatres in Tauranga and Whanganui which helped with a continuity of employment for actors and directors.

Downstage had the StageStruck company, the Court had TIE, the Fortune made occasional forays into the Central and North Otago hinterland and the Mercury took more lavish productions to regional centres and the kids came to them which, for country kids, was a wildly exciting adventure. I well recall, while teaching in the far north, taking my kids to Whangarei to see the Henry plays in an amalgam entitled Agincourt and, as I type these words, the echo of George Henare speaking Henry’s immortal lines chills my blood (see HENRY V, Act IV, Sc 3, line 57-67).

The establishment of Prospect Theatre Company in 1980, again based at Four Seasons in Whanganui, gave New Zealand its first national schools touring company specialising exclusively in New Zealand work, and this group was relocated to Christchurch in 1983 as Troupers Live Theatrix where it remained until 1997 specialising in work with a tangata whenua emphasis with shows such as Sons of Sky and Earth, Te Whare o nga Tangata Whenua (The House of the People), Hinauri’s Tale, Rata’s Revenge, Tawhaki, Man of Lightning and The Adventures of Hatupatu and social issues theatre for seniors such as Short Future (drug use), Playing Safe, (avoiding STDs) and shows with environmental themes. 

The 1990’s saw Robert Gilbert emerge as a new voice first with Whakarite Theatre Company and, more recently the award winning Aranui Theatre Company whose emphasis on New Zealand work often has classical themes and an indigenous presentation.

[An even fuller version of this review may be found in Lexie’s Facebook Notes and Blog.]
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For more production details, click on the title above. Go to Home page to see other Reviews, recent Comments and Forum postings (under Chat Back), and News.  

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