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ATC PATRONS AND SUPPORTING ACTS
Auckland Theatre Company dedicates the ASB season of Under the Mountain to
AMBER McWILLIAMS 11 Oct 1975 – 30 Jan 2018
A passionate advocate for creative thinking, Amber’s association with ATC began in the late ’90s. She has made a huge contribution to ATC’s work with children, young people and schools. Amber fostered the careers of a number of people working in theatre today through her role as ATC’s first Youth Arts Coordinator and as a writer of dozens of our education resources. Amber’s infectious enthusiasm, sharp mind and big heart will be greatly missed by everyone at ATC.
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WELCOME TO THE ASB SEASON OF UNDER THE MOUNTAIN We are pleased to present the stage adaptation of the iconic Kiwi story here at ASB Waterfront Theatre. As a leading provider of integrated financial services in New Zealand, ASB is committed to championing creative innovation and we acknowledge the role the arts play in developing healthy and vibrant communities. Following our long and dedicated history of supporting cultural and community initiatives, our principal partnership with Auckland Theatre Company creates exciting opportunities for continuing to encourage the arts. Last year, we were privileged to support Auckland Theatre Company’s Mythmakers programme; taking first-class theatre into schools and reaching more than 10,000 Auckland primary school students. For 2018, we are supporting the community outreach performance programme Still Life with Chickens. This programme includes theatre workshops for teachers and students, and community performances. We look forward to continuing to work with Auckland Theatre Company to help realise the potential arts can play in New Zealand’s future success. In the meantime, we trust you will enjoy the ASB season of Under the Mountain. Playwright Pip Hall has done a marvellous job of adapting one of New Zealand’s favourite novels for the stage in this contemporary version. Sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
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Welcome from ASB
SEASON OF
CAST Rachel Matheson — Katrina George Theo Matheson — Richie Grzyb Aunty Noeline/Wilberforce — Nicola Kawana Mr Jones — Peter Hayden Ricky/Wilberforce — Kimo Houltham Mr Wilberforce — Daniel Cooper Mrs Wilberforce — Melana Khabazi Lenart/Wilberforce — Joseph Witkowski Johan/Wilberforce — Simon Mead Wilberforce — Jesse Wikiriwhi CREATIVE Director — Sara Brodie Set Designer — Rachael Walker Costume Designer — Elizabeth Whiting Lighting Designer — Jo Kilgour Sound Designer — Thomas Press Video Designer — Simon Barker Dramaturg — Philippa Campbell PRODUCTION Production Manager — Robert Hunte Company Manager (Maternity Cover) — Eliza Josephson-Rutter Technical Manager/Interim Production Manager — Jamie Blackburn Stage Manager — Lucie Camp Assistant Stage Manager — Ashley Mardon Technical Operator — Zach Howells Props Master — Becky Ehlers Sound Operator — Andrew Furness Set Construction — 2Construct Casting — Lynne Cardy By arrangement with
Special thanks for the support from ATC Patrons. Under the Mountain adapted by Pip Hall was commissioned and developed by Auckland Theatre Company, New Zealand. AUCKLAND THEATRE COMPANY WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING FOR THEIR HELP WITH THIS PRODUCTION: Extreme Edge Glen Eden; Samantha Kidby – Penguin Random House; Tom Rennie and Julia Wells – Bridget Williams Books; Maurice Gee; Jenna Todd – Time Out Bookstore; Karen Craig – Auckland Libraries; Catrin Johnsson; John Campbell; Jo Smith; Geoff Chapple; Jasper Putt; Geneva Butler; Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School; and The Next Stage Under the Mountain workshop and presentation 2015 cast and crew: Taylor Barrett, Virginia Frankovich, Georgie Goater, Mike Hudson, Kevin Keys, Jackson MacCauley, Harriett Maire, Eli Matthewson, Tessa Mitchell, Bruce Phillips, Leighton Stichbury. The ASB season of Under the Mountain is the second Auckland Theatre Company mainbill production for 2017/18 and opened on February 9 at ASB Waterfront Theatre. The production is approximately two hours long and includes a 20-minute interval. Please remember to switch off all mobile phones and noise-emitting devices.
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Artistic Director Colin McColl
HAPPY NEW YEAR! It’s Auckland Theatre Company’s 25th birthday season and what better way to start 2018 than with this very Auckland story from one of New Zealand’s best-loved authors? Since its publication, nearly 40 years ago, Maurice Gee’s Under the Mountain has enthralled generations of readers with its mystery, magic and master storytelling. The story of the 12-year-old red-headed twins, Theo and Rachel, and their quest to save the world from the evil, shape-shifting aliens, The Wilberforces, has been adapted for a television series and a feature film. Now, it’s our great delight to bring you this classic Kiwi adventure live on stage in Pip Hall’s terrific theatre adaptation. ATC’s production of Under the Mountain has been created by Sara Brodie, the master of theatricality responsible for our hit production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. She has gathered together a first-rate team of actors, dancers and innovative designers to bring this thrilling tale to life on stage. Huge thanks to the actors and creative team for their sterling work, to Pip Hall for her inspired adaptation and, of course, to Maurice Gee for his superb storytelling. Enjoy.
Director Sara Brodie
I READ Under the Mountain when I was 10 years old. I remember being told off for reading it by torchlight into the night. A year later, I could watch it on television and was told off for not eating dinner; my fork was poised in suspense over the next Wilberforce encounter. I also had a crush on Theo. I leapt at the chance to direct the ATC Next Stage workshop of the play two years ago. Although Pip Hall has updated the story to the here and now, it is very true to the original and a stroke of theatrical genius is her inclusion of the Swedish twins in the action. The intrinsic magic and swiftly changing environments of the play have been a big challenge. I thank the design team, the workshop cast and the performers you see today for their insights and for sacrificing enough sweat to fill Lake Pupuke. Aucklanders are so lucky to have the places in the story on their doorstep and our team has had great adventures visiting them. I encourage you to do the same but watch out for the Wilberfi!
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Artistic Director and Director’s Notes
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Playwright Pip Hall
IT WAS my daughter’s idea to turn Under the Mountain into a stage play. I’d just given her the book to read – my original copy from when I was a kid – and she wondered whether or not there was a play version. And if not, why not? It was a light-bulb moment. It was such an obvious idea, I thought it must have been done already. Luckily not. I love Under the Mountain: as a child and as an adult, as a reader and a writer. I love the action and adventure, the epic scale of the world, and that it’s exciting and terrifying in equal measure.
“For me, as a playwright, Under the Mountain is about family. It’s what anchors the story and helps provide heart and connection.” The Wilberforces. The magic. I love the twins – I had a crush on Theo – and, oh, how I used to yearn to be a twin! But, most of all, I love that it’s about us: two Kiwi kids, from down on the farm, waging war with aliens in the craters of Rangitoto and Mt Eden. Our people, on our landscape. When I read it in the early ‘80s, it was the first book that really spoke to me: the first book to give me ownership of who I was and where I came from. For me, as a playwright, Under the Mountain is about family. It’s what anchors the story and helps provide heart and connection. There is a lot of my family in this play. My kids were 12 and 11 when I wrote it, similar in age to as Rachel and Theo, and, consciously or unconsciously, I seem to have infused them into the work. The way they talked, their hobbies and interests, their hopes and fears – they’ve all made it into the script on some level. For me, it helped elevate the work off the page: to transition Rachel and Theo into living, breathing, contemporary characters with their own senses of purpose. It made them real.
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ASB season of Under the Mountain
It’s also about the strength of family. In some ways, this story seems more timely than ever. The world can be a dark, uncertain place. We’re waging wars on many fronts – battling for the environment against small-minded-thinking tyranny – and that can be scary. But, with the power of whānau holding you up, as Rachel and Theo discover, that fight can be deeply empowering. What I love about theatre, amongst other things, is that it is a truly collective experience. It’s taken many hands to help me get this script to the stage and I’d like to thank those who have helped me on this journey: Maurice Gee for his trust in me to adapt his beautiful novel. His thoughts on the script, and his feedback of “top marks”, have given me confidence that we can honour his seminal work. Auckland Theatre Company for commissioning this play. It is such a gift to be given space, time, money and encouragement to work on something of this scale and magnitude. Philippa, Lynne and Colin have all been wonderful sounding boards and champions. Sara Brodie for her passion, openness, imagination and vision. I couldn’t have asked for a better director to bring this play into the world. The fantastic, talented cast, and design and production teams. You are all superstars, bringing the work to life, layer by beautiful layer. The staff of Playmarket, Murray, Salesi, Stuart, and Allison, who gave me support and advice, and always have my back. And, lastly, I’d like to thank my family. My mum, Dianne, from whom I learnt the art of people. My dad, Roger, who taught me to love theatre. My husband, Pete, the best dude around. And, mostly, my beautiful children, Billie and Tamai, who are such an integral part of this work.
Playwright’s Note
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KATRINA GEORGE
RICHIE GRZYB
NICOLA KAWANA
CAST KATRINA GEORGE Rachel Matheson Katrina George graduated from Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School in November 2017. Katrina’s part in the ASB season of Under the Mountain is her first professional role after graduating. Here she starts in her first ever lead role, Rachel. This is her second professional theatre role, having first debuted in Red Leap Theatre’s Kororāreka: The Ballad of Maggie Flynn last year. Katrina is off to a great start in her professional career and is excited about what lies ahead. “IT IS an amazing opportunity getting to work alongside incredible actors and dancers in this show. Being taught how to use my ‘gift’ from my superpowered Grandad Mr Jones (Peter Hayden) would have to be an absolute highlight.” RICHIE GRZYB Theo Matheson The ASB season of Under the Mountain is Richie Grzyb’s debut performance for Auckland Theatre Company. He graduated from Unitec’s acting programme in 2014 and has been working solidly in theatre and screen since. The Auckland-based actor grew up in rural Hawke’s Bay and Palmerston North, performing in the local musical theatre scene. In 2016, Richie toured nationally with The Ugly Shakespeare Company and has since worked with Tim Bray Productions. He is a proud member of the Te Pou whānau. His screen credits include the telemovie Vermilion, set for release in 2018, and the web series The Han Chronicles, which is currently screening on TVNZ OnDemand. Richie has always aspired to work for ATC and is super-excited about this opportunity to work with this amazing cast and crew. In his spare time, he loves to play his guitar and sports, and enjoys good food with friends. NICOLA KAWANA Aunty Noeline/Wilberforce Born and raised in Taranaki, Nicola Kawana first trained as an actor with the then Taranaki Youth Theatre. She then headed to Wellington where she made her professional debut in Hone Tuwhare’s In the Wilderness Without a Hat in 1989. Nicola trained at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School and has worked in theatre, film and television. Theatre credits include Mo & Jess Kill Susie, Les Parents Terribles, Home Fires, Woman Far Walking, Blood Wedding, The Motor Camp, The Fix, Awatea, A Doll’s House, and most recently The Vultures. Television and film credits include Jackson’s Wharf, Shortland Street, The Man Who Lost His Head, Eruption, Fresh Meat and Monkey. After a lifelong love of gardening and studying horticulture, Nicola works as a garden writer, gardener and presenter on the TVNZ 1 show, Whānau Living. Nicola is a member of Equity New Zealand and is a UNICEF Global Parent.
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ASB season of Under the Mountain
PETER HAYDEN
KIMO HOULTHAM
DANIEL COOPER
PETER HAYDEN Mr Jones Peter Hayden has split his working life between drama and documentary. He has produced, written and presented many science and nature documentaries. Drama work on screen includes: The Light Between Oceans, Hillary, Power Rangers, Dirty Laundry, Shortland Street, The Brokenwood Mysteries and 800 Words. Earlier roles include Beyond Reasonable Doubt, The Fire-Raiser, Arriving Tuesday, Shaker Run and Illustrious Energy (Best Supporting Actor Award). Peter has appeared in Auckland Theatre Company shows: Other Desert Cities, Trees Beneath the Lake, The Ladykillers, Lysistrata, You Can Always Hand them Back, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Peer Gynt [recycled]. Other theatre productions include Oleanna, Heroes, Calendar Girls, The Truth Game, Tom Scott’s The Daylight Atheist, Roger Hall’s Book Ends and A Short Cut to Happiness, Time Stands Still, Twelfth Night, Into the Woods, David Hare’s The Vertical Hour and Carl Nixon’s The Raft. “SARA BRODIE and I worked together on ATC’s production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I so look forward to making more theatre magic with her in the ASB season of Under the Mountain.” KIMO HOULTHAM Ricky/Wilberforce Kimo Houltham has a career that spans both TV and theatre. He has been a TV presenter on TV shows including IAMTV, Funny Whare and LIPS. In 2014, Kimo performed in The Māori Troilus and Cressida which was staged at the Globe to Globe Festival at the Globe in London. Since then, he has worked both on stage and in television and film. His on-screen drama debut was This is Piki with Brown Sugar Apple Grunt productions. Kimo’s film credits include The Dead Lands and Waru. Last year, Kimo performed in The Navigators: The Haka Party Incident with Auckland Theatre Company. He feels blessed to be working with ATC again. DANIEL COOPER Mr Wilberforce A graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance, Daniel Cooper has performed both nationally and internationally with Atamira Dance Company, Black Grace, and Douglas Wright Dance Company among others. Daniel has performed at many festivals and theatres around the world, such as the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Holland Dance Festival, Asia Pacific Dance Festival and Off Broadway in New York City. Daniel was Assistant Choreographer for World of WearableArt, and Choreographer for Stars in Their Eyes and Life’s a Riot on television. He has also had the privilege of being Rehearsal Director/ Choreographic Assistant for Okareka Dance Company and Atamira Dance Company. In the field of education, Daniel represented the Royal New Zealand Ballet as Dance Educator and has taught at the New Zealand School of Dance, Unitec and The Actors’ Program. He also worked with Okareka Dance Company to initiate its annual Summer School. Daniel last joined Auckland Theatre Company for Billy Elliot the Musical in 2016 and is excited to be back for the ASB season of Under the Mountain.
Cast
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MELANA KHABAZI
JOSEPH WITKOWSKI
SIMON MEAD
JESSE WIKIRIWHI
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MELANA KHABAZI Mrs Wilberforce Originally from Georgia, Melana Khabazi began her training in dance at MGL school of Musical and Humanitarian Studies in the Siberian town of Ulan-Ude, Russia. There, she completed her studies in Eastern European Folk Dance and Classical Music. Melana continued studying dance with a focus on contemporary dance as it had always appealed to her as a way of merging different art forms into one. Melana moved to New Zealand because of its international recognition in dance and completed a bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Dance at Unitec in 2013. Melana is in search of expressing herself and the solid basis of her studies in theatre, music and film (as well as experience in Georgia, Russia and New Zealand) is a great source of inspiration. JOSEPH WITKOWSKI Lenart/Wilberforce Joseph Witkowski is a 2017 graduate of Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School. The ASB season of Under the Mountain is his second professional theatre role, and his first since graduating. His first professional theatre role was in Fortune Theatre’s Into the Woods last year. Joseph has starred in various amateur theatre productions, including The Adding Machine, Lost Cause, Caucus, Caucus, Harvest, Dawn, and Black Confetti. His screen work includes Satin Sheets and An Arm and a Leg. SIMON MEAD Johan/Wilberforce The ASB season of Under the Mountain will be not only Simon Mead’s Auckland Theatre Company debut but his first professional theatre experience. Before graduating from The Actors’ Program in 2016, Simon appeared on television series Nothing Trivial, Hillary and The Cul de Sac. His most recent role was in the TVNZ telefeature Why Does Love? playing Harry Harallambi, the drummer of the iconic New Zealand band, Dance Exponents. Simon is very much looking forward to working with this fabulous cast on a fun, adventure-packed New Zealand story and knows it will be the best introduction to live performance outside of drama school that he could have. JESSE WIKIRIWHI Wilberforce Hailing from Christchurch, Jesse Wikiriwhi moved to Auckland in 2002 to attend the Unitec Performing Arts degree programme. Graduating in 2004, he has forged a successful career, working alongside some of New Zealand’s top dancers and choreographers. In 2007, he joined Footnote New Zealand Dance and worked full time for three years on a variety of shows that toured nationally and internationally. He has worked very closely with Okareka Dance Company in various roles. Most recently, he was a part of the critically acclaimed work K’Rd Strip – A Place to Stand, which toured to London and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2015. In 2014 and 2015, Jesse joined the NZ Opera team to choreograph La Traviata, directed by Kate Cherry, which toured Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Over the last two years, Jesse has ventured into television where, currently, he is a TV personality and resident barista on Three’s daily morning lifestyle show The Café.
Cast
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Rehearsal Photos
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IN REHEARSAL
Photo credit: Brad Fisher
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MAURICE GEE
PIP HALL
CREATIVE MAURICE GEE Writer Maurice Gee is an award-winning author and is one of the country’s best-known writers. His other works include Salt, Gool, The Fat Man, Orchard Street, Hostel Girl, In My Father’s Den, The Plumb Trilogy and The O Trilogy. “UNDER THE MOUNTAIN was my first book for children. It was published nearly 40 years ago. I had two young daughters with red hair and I wrote about red-headed twins for them. Although the story is a fantasy with invaders from outer space I wanted to set it in a place New Zealand children would recognise as their own – hence Auckland, and especially Rangitoto Island and the extinct volcanic cones that dot the city. The book has stayed in print ever since and has also been made into a TV serial and a big-screen movie. Now, it’s a play, wonderfully adapted by Pip Hall. I hope you’ll enjoy the adventures of the twins Rachel and Theo, and manage not to have nightmares about their shape-shifting enemies, the Wilberforces. Have a happy time.” PIP HALL Playwright Pip Hall has worked as a full-time writer since 1995, after graduating from the University of Otago with a degree in Drama. Pip’s main love is theatre. She has written more than a dozen plays, many of which have been commissioned. Her work has been produced by every major theatre company in New Zealand. She is best known for her plays Shudder, The 53rd Victim and Ache as well as for winning New Zealand’s most prestigious theatre accolade, the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award. Under the Mountain is the second play Pip has had produced by Auckland Theatre Company, after Who Needs Sleep Anyway?, which she co-wrote with her father, Roger Hall. Pip also works extensively in television as a writer, storyliner, story/script editor and developer. Recent credits include Why Does Love?, 800 Words and The Brokenwood Mysteries. Pip is also co-creator of the Wet Hot Beauties, an all-inclusive contemporary water ballet company. SARA BRODIE Director Sara Brodie has directed and choreographed more than 90 productions for companies including NZ Opera, Melbourne Festival, Capital E National Theatre for children, Chamber Music New Zealand and arts festivals across New Zealand. For ATC, she directed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in 2015. More recently, Sara directed Sister Act for Showbiz Christchurch and the opera premiere The Bone Feeder (Auckland Arts Festival and NZ Opera). She is a Laureate of The Arts Foundation and has an MA in Theatre from Victoria University, specialising in Laban Movement Analysis. Sara’s work ranges from creating Fault Lines, a dance-theatre production about earthquakes with the Leshan Song and Dance Company of Sichuan, China, for the Melbourne and Christchurch Arts Festivals (which has toured to Montreal, China and Australia) to Tracing Hamlet – a community processional deconstruction of Hamlet at Puzzling World for the Wanaka Festival of Colour. Sara read Under the Mountain when she was 10 and was spellbound by the lava tunnels. She is delighted to be bringing Pip Hall’s wonderful play to theatrical life in Auckland, where you can actually visit all the places in which Rachel and Theo encounter the Wilberforces.
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ASB season of Under the Mountain
RACHAEL WALKER
ELIZABETH WHITING
JO KILGOUR
RACHAEL WALKER Set Designer With a passion for theatrical set and prop design, Rachael Walker has spent the past 16 years amassing more than 100 projects as a professional designer in Auckland. For Auckland Theatre Company, her works include Last Legs, Nell Gwynn, Venus in Fur, That Bloody Woman, You Can Always Hand Them Back, Lysistrata, The Ladykillers, The Lollywitch of Mumuland, Other Desert Cities, Polly Hood in Mumuland, Anne Boleyn, Kings of the Gym, The Gift, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), Calendar Girls, God of Carnage, Who Needs Sleep Anyway?, End of the Rainbow, The Tutor, The Bach, The Vagina Monologues, Play 2 and Play 2.03. She won Excellence at the Auckland Theatre Awards in 2017 for Nell Gwynn in 2016 for ATC/The Court Theatre’s production of That Bloody Woman and in 2014 for Silo Theatre’s production of Angels in America. Rachael was the 2008 URBIS Best Stage Designer. ELIZABETH WHITING Costume Designer Elizabeth Whiting has designed costumes for NZ Opera, Auckland Theatre Company, Silo Theatre, The Court Theatre, Red Leap Theatre, Okareka Dance Company, Black Grace, Douglas Wright Dance Company, Michael Parmenter, Atamira Dance Company, Shona McCullagh, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Pop-Up Theatre London for the Edinburgh Festival and The World of WearableArt core show in Wellington for six years. In 2010, she won the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for Costume Design Award for The Arrival (Red Leap Theatre). She represented New Zealand at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in 2003 with her costumes for Falstaff and, again in 2007, with a team of designers who created the exhibition Blow. Her designs for The Marriage of Figaro have just been presented in Seattle, and her costume designs for Tosca in Perth had a great reception. Recently, Elizabeth has designed Uncle Vanya (The Court Theatre), Kororāreka (Red Leap Theatre), Kiss the Sky (The New Zealand Dance Company), Blonde Poison and Nell Gwynn (Auckland Theatre Company). Her costume designs were seen in the successfully remounted productions of Hudson and Halls Live! and The Mooncake and the Kumara in 2017. This year, she is designing La Bohème for NZ Opera and The Cherry Orchard for ATC. JO KILGOUR Lighting Designer Jo Kilgour is an Auckland-based Lighting Designer and Technical/Production Director with extensive touring and festival experience. Her work in technical management includes The New Zealand Dance Company (NZDC), Auckland Arts Festival, New Zealand Festival, Christchurch Arts Festival, and Taranaki Arts Festival. Her lighting design credits include Nell Gwynn, Amadeus, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Book Club (Auckland Theatre Company), Kiss the Sky, The Absurdity of Humanity, Lumina (NZDC), Rushes (Malia Johnston), The Owl & The Pussy-cat (Tim Bray Productions), Ihimaera (Auckland Arts Festival 2011), The Pickle King (Indian Ink Theatre Company), Vita and Virginia (Circa Theatre), The God Boy (Downstage Theatre), Woman Far Walking (Taki Rua Productions/NZ Festival 2000) and Skin Tight (Tidy Theatre Company). Jo’s lighting design (along with Rowan Pierce’s AV design) for Malia Johnston’s Rushes won the Auckland Fringe 2017 Production Design (Lighting & AV) award
Creative
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THOMAS PRESS Sound Designer Thomas Press is a graduate of the New Zealand School of Music with a Bachelor of Music in Composition (2009) and of Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School with a Diploma in Entertainment Technology (2005). For Auckland Theatre Company, Thomas has designed sound for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Billy Elliot the Musical. Thomas composed an original score for Red Leap Theatre’s production Dust Pilgrim, and composed an original sound design for Silo Theatre’s critically and popularly acclaimed production of The Book of Everything. He also worked as a sound designer for Duncan Sarkies’ podcast serial The Mysterious Secrets of Uncle Bertie’s Botanarium. He is a five-time nominee of the Chapman Tripp Theatre Award for Sound Designer of the Year and 2014 winner of the Auckland Theatre Awards People’s Choice Best Music award, and received an Excellence Award for Sound Design and Composition throughout 2015 at the 2015 Auckland Theatre Awards.
THOMAS PRESS
SIMON BARKER
SIMON BARKER Video Designer Simon Barker runs the creative video production company Lotech Media, specialising in production for many of Aotearoa’s largest art and music festivals, along with numerous awards ceremonies and theatrical productions. Having worked in the creative video scene for more than 15 years, Simon now has a team of digital creatives producing some of the most experimental live video in the country. Recent works include the critically acclaimed 20th anniversary retrospective, Siva, for Black Grace as well as numerous Auckland Theatre Company productions, including 2013’s The Glass Menagerie, and 2017’s Peer Gynt [recycled] and Red Speedo.
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CREEKS AND KITCHENS: A CHILDHOOD MEMOIR by Maurice Gee
“I wanted settings New Zealand children would recognise, with New Zealand the most important place in the world, as it is for the children who live here.”
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ASB season of Under the Mountain
I’M GOING TO JUMP ahead now, leave out my adult novels, and pick the story up in my early forties, when I began to think about writing for children. I turned towards it for several reasons. It was 1974 and it seemed to me that if I didn’t soon make the attempt to become a professional full-time writer my chance would be lost. I’d published a dozen short stories and three novels but I knew I had many more inside me – stories of all sorts. I was living in Mewburn Avenue, over beyond Mt Eden Road, and working in the Auckland Teachers’ College library. My wife and I worked out what we called ‘our five-year plan’: when our younger daughter turned five I’d give up work, we’d shift to Nelson and live as cheaply as we could. Margareta would work part-time, and I would give all my time to writing. In the meantime I would try to widen my range and try to be more commercial. That meant doing television scripts. It also meant writing for children. I had the belief, based on no research, that children’s writers earned more than adult writers. My wife reminds me that I also wanted to see if I could write a book in three months. All this sounds cynical and dubious. In fact, I had another ambition. I wanted to write something my two young daughters would enjoy reading when they were older. My problem was I didn’t have any ideas. I wanted to get away from the explorations of guilt and delving into psyches I’d been doing in my writing for adults. I wanted, for a time, to write horizontally rather than vertically – do open-cast mining, if I can put it another way, rather than deep-shaft mining. For that reason I decided to write what I call fantasy/ adventure – put the emphasis on movement, develop narrative pace, tell a story as story pure and simple. I wanted settings New Zealand children
Creeks and Kitchens: A Childhood Memoir
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would recognise, with New Zealand the most important place in the world, as it is for the children who live here. I wanted to put in Auckland’s volcanic cones and the North Shore beaches. And I would have children with red hair because that’s what my red-headed daughters asked me for. But, as I said, I had no good ideas. Then two things fitted together. A woman I worked with gave me Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen to read (she only read children’s novels, she told me, because adult novels were so unpleasant), and I thought I would like to attempt what Garner manages so brilliantly in that book: place the child characters in dreadful danger from some supernatural or monstrous thing, while leaving them in their natural everyday world with no way of making adults see the danger. It’s a situation that generates enormous tension, and generates story endlessly. Shortly after reading that book I was walking up to work on a grey misty morning and saw Mt Eden sink down and hide itself behind the houses. Then, at the end of the street, it suddenly sprang up and loomed over me, and I thought, I wonder what is hiding under there. So I had my idea. I started Under the Mountain that night – and finished it in three months. A sad thing then: nobody wanted to publish it. I sent it round – back it came, time after time. So I put it away. Margareta and I lost patience and turned our five-year plan into a three-year one. We left for Nelson, where I built a little room under the house we bought above the Maitai River and sat down to write Plumb, which I’d been saving myself up for, storing energy for. I forgot about writing for children and didn’t look at Under the Mountain again until Plumb was finished. I saw then that it had possibilities, did some repair work, and showed it to Chris Cole Catley. Chris offered to publish it, but then, very generously,
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ASB season of Under the Mountain
stood aside when Oxford University Press showed interest. (I think they’d seen it before and turned it down.) Bridget Williams was the editor. She said yes, but there were things I must do. I’ll refer to only one of them. The story began with the red-headed twins, Rachel and Theo, walking in a Takapuna street. Suddenly they hear a mysterious voice in their heads. It comes from a strange old man on the other side of the street and it says, ‘Follow me, children.’ So they follow him, under a strange compulsion. He reaches his house, opens the door, and they go in. The door closes. No, no, no, Bridget said. You can’t have children following a strange man home and going into his house, it’s dangerous. That was my first practical lesson in writing for children. I had to put in a prologue, establishing the old man as benign and having Rachel and Theo recognise him from an earlier encounter, when they were lost in the bush and he saved them. So I learned that child readers are vulnerable in ways that adults are not. There’s an uncorrected mistake in the book – my wife told me to change it but I wouldn’t listen. It comes from a bit of moralising. It had seemed to me, on no good evidence – because I wasn’t widely read in children’s literature – that the children in adventure and fantasy stories win their victories too easily. They go through dreadful danger, emerge unscathed and unchanged, and presumably get on with their lives. I wanted to say that there’s a price to pay – and the price in Under the Mountain is the death of Ricky, a likeable teenage boy. I’ve had many letters about the book over the years and time and again I find the children saying, ‘Why does Ricky have to die?’ There’s no answer except that the author decided it was lesson time. I’d overlooked completely that many children would identify with Ricky. I know now that you can’t have lessons as hard as his death suddenly appear in stories that proceed on a different set of assumptions – that’s to say, the fantasy/adventure set of assumptions. It’s a breaking of the covenant that exists between writer and reader. If I were writing Under the Mountain today I’d save Ricky. Extract from Gee, Maurice, Creeks and Kitchens: A Childhood Memoir, 2014, Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, pp.32–37. http://bwb.co.nz/books/creeks-and-kitchens
Creeks and Kitchens: A Childhood Memoir
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UPCOMING AUCKLAND TH COMPANY SHO MARCH In association with Auckland Arts Festival, Auckland Theatre Company presents
1984 by George Orwell, a new adaptation created by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan
9 – 25 March Big Brother is always watching. Set in a world where an invasive government keeps a malevolently watchful eye on its citizens, this radical and muchlauded staging explores surveillance, identity and the reason that Orwell’s vision of the future is as relevant now as it ever was. Orwell’s fiction has become our reality.
MAY MiNDFOOD season of
MRS WARREN’S PROFESSION by George Bernard Shaw
From May 1 When Vivie discovers that her expensive education was funded by her mother’s earnings from a string of brothels, Vivie’s thoroughly modern world view is thrown into tumult. Join Mrs Warren for a liberating evening of smart comedy, social commentary and sophisticated scandal.
AUGUST ASB season of
FILTHY BUSINESS by Ryan Craig
From August 14 East London, 1968. Yetta Solomon is the quintessential refugee who survived the un-survivable. Having built a mini-empire out of nothing, she takes no prisoners and suffers no fools. Hysterically funny and historically fascinating, Filthy Business is a towering tribute to the entrepreneurial outsiders who have become the beating heart of every modern society.
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ASB season of Under the Mountain
HEATRE OWS In association with Auckland Arts Festival, Auckland Theatre Company presents
STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS by D.F. Mamea
8 – 14 March 17 – 24 March
Māngere Arts Centre ASB Waterfront Theatre, ASB Cube
When Mama discovers a mischievous chicken invading her flourishing vegie garden, her first instinct is to reach for the spade. But what starts out as a skirmish over the silverbeet, develops into an unlikely friendship.
JUNE Kensington Swan season of
THE CHERRY ORCHARD by Anton Chekhov
From June 12 Anton Chekhov remains one of the world’s greatest and mostcompassionate playwrights. His final masterpiece, The Cherry Orchard, is a tragicomedy: a laughter-through-tears tale told by sad clowns and self-made men. Bask in the timely and timeless brilliance of this immortal theatre classic.
SEPTEMBER Giltrap Audi season of
RENDERED by Stuart Hoar
From September 18 In an unnamed Middle Eastern desert, Major Aria and her mercenary accomplice are on a secret mission to meet up with a New Zealander who’s defected to ISIS with his Arab wife. Meanwhile, at the Auckland Writers Festival, kindergarten teacher Miranda receives an offer she can’t refuse from a charming American visitor. Soon these six lives are inextricably entwined in a worldwide web of intrigue, danger and espionage.
Upcoming Auckland Theatre Company Shows
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Your next event in the spotlight. AWT MICE ADVERT
The ASB Waterfront Theatre complex offers a number of versatile event spaces perfect for your next function or event. With state-of-theart in-house staging and production facilities as well as on-site catering, ASB Waterfront Theatre is Auckland’s newest premier function venue. For event enquiries, please email: events@atc.co.nz or visit asbwaterfronttheatre.co.nz
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Food & Beverage Manager: Richard Pepper Front of House Manager: Ralph Corke Ticketing Administrator: Paul Vintner Box Office Coordinator: Faith-Ashleigh Wong Specialist Contractor: Geeling Ching FOH Supervisors: Cally Castell, Michael Cranney, Eliot Youmans
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Mike Smith and Dale d’Rose Philippa Smith-Lambert and Chris Lambert Joanne Smout and Janmarie Thompson Gilli Sutton Lady Tait Julie and Russell Tills Kit Toogood and Pip Muir Simon Vannini and Anita Killeen Susan and Gavin Walker Sir James Wallace Ian Webster and Jianni Felpas Dona and Gavin White Fran Wyborn Annemarie Yannaghas Anonymous (1) ATC 2017/18 SUPPORTING ACTS Our Standing Ovation Supporters Sandy and Alan Bulmer Rob Nicoll Matthew Olde and Jacqui Cormack Brian and Pam Stevenson Scott and Louise Wallace Our Take A Bow Supporters Shane Compton Lex Forrest Nick and Steph Francis Sandra Greenfield Rosemary Langham Caroline List Mike and Debbie Whale ATC welcomes Supporting Acts donations throughout the year. CONTACT BOX OFFICE ASB Waterfront Theatre 138 Halsey Street, Wynyard Quarter Subscriber Hotline: 09 309 3395 General Box Office: 0800 ATC TIX (282 849) boxoffice@atc.co.nz
Auckland Theatre Company
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still s n e k c i h c life with by
D.F. Mamea NERZ WTIN H E A DA M N OF
2017 BEST PLAY sociation Presented in as s Festival rt A d with Aucklan
MĀNGERE ARTS CENTRE 8 – 14 MARCH ATC.CO.NZ / 0800 BUY TIX ASB WATERFRONT THEATRE, ASB CUBE 17 – 24 MARCH ATC.CO.NZ / 0800 ATC TIX
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
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