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Burrowing On

Actors as Tohungas or Red Mole revisited

Last week David Murray raised the question of the social and political effectiveness of the Red Mole way of working. He cast doubt as the the validity of such entertainment in these politically turbulent times.

At about the same time a lecturer in Drama, Adrian Kiernander, verbally assaulted me in the corridor for giving the impression in my article a couple of weeks ago that Red Mole were leaving New Zealand because of a lack of financial support from the Q. E. II Arts Council. He pointed out that they did receive money from the Arts Council for their tour of Ghost Rite and that the reason they were leaving New Zealand was because they wanted new stimulus from overseas.

Both apparently different events but with a very important relationship. They both question the place theatre should fill in New Zealand society; the one arguing for its use as a weapon in the social development of this country, the other arguing that its major importance exits as an international art form, whereby its practitioners should go wherever they feel best able to develop their mysterious powers for the sake of Theatre. New Zealand is useful as a starting point but overseas is where it should all really happen.

What I would like to do is to explore these arguments further and in the process elaborate on my own ideals. This debate is important and I would welcome any further further discussion in the pages of Salient. If you would care to send in your thoughts I will attempt to get them printed.

Theatre should not be considered an Art Form. Rather, as Shakespeare would have it, it is an attempt to "hold a mirror up to nature." He considered his work in theatre as a socially valuable way of making a living but didn't think it merited taking pains to get his plays published. Other people did that for him.

And that is how it should be.

When theatre became a cultural thing to do it started to stagnate like the Japanese Noh drama, it became a means of diversion for the intellectual and social elite and lost all relevance for the rest of the population. How can you possibly hold a clear enough mirror to nature if it refuses to reflect 95% of the population. And the most important section at that.

This is where I can't accept the Red Mole argument that they must go overseas to gain new stimulus. New stimulus from where? Their community is here, their people are here. It is only from this community that any real and vital stimulus can come. As David Murray argues, technique basically doesn't matter at all. What is important is to perceive what really is happening here and now and to present that in such a way that it can be communicated to your audience.

A tohunga is a person of great wisdom and perception who has a finger on the pulse of the community and can, through the performance of rituals, placate the gods, exorcise demons, and direct the people towards more valuable goals. Actors should be the modern tohungas. For a tohunga to leave the tribe in order to gain new skills in performing the rites, and also to have an opportunity of looking at his people from a different viewpoint would be patently absurd. The magic would leave, the tribe would be endangered.

Looked at in this way, it becomes absurd to present plays merely for the sake of entertainment and to make a quick buck. It is a very difficult thing to come to any real perception of our community. It takes much exploration, a great deal of time, a lot of sensitivity and a strong feeling of being part of a community. To waste time working on pap entertainment weakens sensitivity and alienates one from the community.

At the present time, our community is going through a social crisis. We have a Prime Minister who is attempting to gain supreme control over the way New Zealand should move. In the process he is alienating huge sections of the population from one another, splintering people off so they feel isolated and afraid, chasing people overseas, subtly destroying opposition and basically creating immense confusion and anguish for his egotistical ends. He wants to be king. There is absolutely no reason for this to be allowed to happen. The solution is so simple.

If people refused to become alienated, but rather joined closer together as a community they would find that they could enjoy one another's company. They would then find that, in a situation of friendship and love, the could quite easily solve what are basically trivial financial and social problems with great ease. Muldoon's hopes of power would crumble.

Theatre can be a very valuable means of bringing this about. But if it aligned itself with any political ideology or party the result would be fatal. Ideologies fight one another and the aim of theatre should be to unite. If everyone in New Zealand could understand that no one is the same as anyone else, and enjoy that difference, rather than be angry or frightened of it, we would be getting somewhere.

All this is, of course, an idealistic dream. But dreams are the stuff of theatre. What better place from which to act.

John Bailey