16
GIVING STORIES
COMMUNITY Alison Mudford on the state of the play in Aotearoa’s community theatres.
An old man sits dejectedly in his favourite chair. “I don’t want to go,” Ken Taylor says, his voice cracking with emotion. His words are met with an awkward silence. Eventually, he struggles to his feet. Using his chair for support, he entwines his fingers through a crochet rug folded on the back. It’s as if he expects this will somehow stop his family dragging him off to see out his days in a Dunedin rest home, far from his beloved Central Otago farm of 50 years. “Don’t make me go,” he pleads… There are tears and sniffles in the audience. Hands wipe away telltale traces. Gary Henderson’s Home Land has landed a powerful punch at East Auckland’s Howick Little Theatre, where they find it’s New Zealand stories such as this that have the strongest impact. Audiences recognise the situations, the characters and the emotions playing out on stage. They’re seeing themselves, their friends, their families – their stories. But Bryan Aitken, the President of Theatre New Zealand, which represents community theatre societies throughout Aotearoa among
its activities, says community groups aren’t staging enough of these stories, and this needs to change. “Traditionally, the people doing communitytheatre play selection are looking for well-made English plays. If the executives are in their seventies, for example, then the play choices tend to reflect their tastes and interests rather than those of new audiences,” says Bryan, a former Associate Artistic Director and original company member of Christchurch’s Court Theatre, who now works as a freelance director, tutor and tour manager. “This has to change at grassroots level. We have to get people to read more plays, ask questions about what’s new and what’s happening and see more theatre by going to their professional or community theatres. How will our theatres grow and develop if those who choose the plays for community theatres don’t challenge themselves by seeing new work?” Aitken acknowledges that a problem community theatres face is that they’re not funded to take risks, even though, in most
