WHY I READ THE PLAYS I READ

Why I read the play I read

JEAN BETTS on Smack and Conversations with a Golliwog

Two powerful one-acters I directed in the ‘70s come to mind. I’m curious to see what a director would do with them today. Why did I read them? Playmarket had not been going long and scripts were pouring in, playwrights delighted that at last someone was willing to read them. I was one of the early readers. I was hoping to find ‘The Great NZ Play’ at a time when the NZ play was barely even a thing – but most were painfully drab, dates confirming they’d been shuffled out of bottom drawers into the light of day for the first time in decades. Working my way through them was really getting me down – and then Nonnita Rees handed me Smack, one of two short works submitted by young Aucklander Dean Parker, and suggested I direct it. I couldn’t believe my luck – it was electrifying, sparkling with energy, intelligence, anger and blistering humour. I felt I’d been hauled out of Gollum’s cave into the sunlight. Quinn, motoring down from Auckland to hometown Napier in his Bedford van with his wary girlfriend, whiles away the drive with a series of lengthy, fiercely funny, dodgy jokes. Underneath the apparent good humour he burns with ugly rage, furious at the hypocrisy and corruption he sees everywhere – the family cruelty and indifference, the greed and inequality he blames for ruining the lives of his friends, for poisoning the world; the older generation savaging the young. Revolution is in the air; and he has a plan. Desperate for revenge and prepared to resort to violence to get it he’s singled out an unfortunate Napier bank manager as his victim. It’s a startling, savage piece of work, no doubt inspired by the plays Dean had seen during a recent stay in London where early Barkers, Shepards, Brentons and co were burning up the stage. It’s a tour de force for an extremely articulate and energetic young actor, in our case Stephen Tozer in top form. As well as the bank manager (a suitably baffled Peter Hayden) there are two small female parts –Quinn’s delicate girlfriend and a cheery hitchhiker. (The original script asked for two go-go girls in cages each side of the stage too. Well, it was the ‘70s. We cut them. He thanked us later.) I’d love to see it again – set in the ‘70s, still, of course, with its ‘70s drug scene, and it’s great ‘70s soundtrack.

I FELT I’D BEEN HAULED OUT OF GOLLUM’S CAVE INTO THE SUNLIGHT

On the other hand Alexander Guyan’s Conversations with a Golliwog is a great challenge for a young woman. (The offensive ‘golliwog’ is also a challenge today – but there are solutions.) I’d read it as a teen, looking for audition pieces I think, and it had haunted me ever since. I know very little about Alexander Guyan (193391) and this play was first performed in 1963 at Dunedin’s Globe Theatre. I never met him. Canny starts aged 14 and is 19 by the end of the play. Sensitive, complex and fragile, sharp as a knife, she has a very special relationship with her golliwog, Boswell. However Boswell, with whom she used to confide, conducting long conversations to the consternation of her family, has been silent for some time – ever since a traumatic event involving her brother and a mouse. The play explores Canny’s struggle with difficult family relationships, her anguish at the expectations she’s burdened with, despair at the confusions and terrors of womanhood and romance (a time when ‘suburban neurosis’ was just being identified, sensed and feared by many girls as their miserable fate) until finally it’s all too much, her mind gives way and her fantasy world returns. The only compensation is that, therefore, Boswell begins to talk to her again. Reading it now I’m reminded forcefully of the attitude to ‘mental illness’ in those days, to young women who resisted the limitations they were expected to live by, and labelled misfits. Parents and authorities were baffled, teachers scandalised; mothers were disproportionately and often very unfairly blamed! However this very datedness is what makes it most interesting now, I think. Even though great strides in understanding and treatment have been made since, Canny’s mental torment will still resonate powerfully. As well as Canny (a shimmering performance by Christina Milligan in our production) and Boswell (Peter McCauley at his rangy best) two other males and one female are required. Very different plays but both very clever, very sharp and witty, both exploring aspects of youthful anger and despair, but from completely different angles. They’d make an interesting retro double-bill.

ABOVE: The Current Offence Group (L-R Michael Noonan, Lindsey Bogle, Alexander Guyan, John McGowan) 1965. Image: Marti Friedlander. Courtesy of the Gerrard and Marti Friedlander Charitable Trust.