Wellington festival: Ben Hur and Baxter

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33191, 3 April 1973, Page 10

Wellington festival: Ben Hur and Baxter

(By I

HOWARD McNAUGHTON)

The Wellington Festival was not entirely a matter of i football and fireworks—but there was enough of these to make the Christchurch Festival look like a cultural concentration camp. The first sign I saw of Wellington’s enthusiasm for the arts was a huge queue outside the big screen version of “Ben Hur,” though I was also impressed later to see large numbers being turned! away from the Downstage late-night show; after seeing the show, I decided that this

was about the kindest thing could do to them. The basic idea of the revue was I quite good—the Godmother [brings syndicated crime to the capital, and with it the St Hallenstein’s Day ‘Massacre of the unsuspectling bourgeoisie who are buying walk-shorts. Theatrically, though, it was a very crude effort which depended to much on parochial satire; wisely, it began after the pubs had closed. The Wellington Public Library does not open on Sunday, and my suspicions

that illiteracy is rampant in i the capital deepened when !l found a rock concert on the lawn outside the library. Poets, incidentally, had a very hard time in Welligton compared with Christchurch, but Sam Hunt was billed in the rock concert as a token gesture to Culture. I waited an hour or so for Hunt to do his “Swan of Bottle Creek” act, and then [wandered off without hearing it; reports suggested that he is no closer to Ziggy Stardust than ever.

Two New Zealand dramatic works were featured in the festival: “The Taniwha,” by James Ritchie, and Richard Campion’s revival of Baxter’s “The Wide Open Cage.” The consensus seemed to be that these represented the worst and the best of festival drama (respectively),! and although I did not see enough to confirm this, their | standards seemed to make it! quite reasonable. Certainly, it would be hard to imagine anything much worse than the opera technique production of “The Taniwha.” Ludicrously billed as a "rock opera,” it seemed basically very much the stuff of trad opera, with a few four-letter words occasionally discernible in the very [ stylised delivery. Casting seemed to have been on the I criterion of who was pre- | pared to strip, and the set [might have been built by the [stage crew in five minutes 'from oddments lying round backstage; appropriately, no credit was given for its design. Blerta (a group) was buried somewhere behind the set, and made interesting noises from time to time; though it was audible, it was not adequately amplified, and didn’t fill the auditorium as it should have. The story was about as banal as can be imagined: the establishment of a commune under the influence of the Taniwha. There

were, though, a few good lighting effects. In every respect, “The Wide Open Cage” at Unity Theatre was a connoisseur production. Before it opened, people were speculating that it wouldn’t revive well, that its explosive power of 15 years ago would seen timid and dated now. Actually, it turned out to be powerful, gripping, and thoroughly immediate. even more urgent [than one could have guessed from the script; it played to [full houses, and another 'season is to open shortly. ! Richard Campion, who. of [Course, did the original production of all of Baxter’s early plays, made several modifications to the script, [which co-ordinated its impact [considerably, and also introduced numerous bits of business; all of this was done I most sensitively. Surprisingly, [though, he seemed to have [expurgated at least one part 'of the text — a section which Christchurch was able to hear in the recent Cathedral production.

The whole cast reached a high level of competence, with the professionals standing out. It was Michael Haigh’s interpretation of Hogan, though, that staggered me, both for its high standard of performance and because it convinced me that I had misread the role: as the drunk, he gave the most ghastly depiction of evil that I can remember on the stage. 1 Campion’s production strengthened my feeling that; Baxter’s dramatic instincts ) were quite sound from the. first and that, moreover, his 1 later excursions into other! dramatic territory impaired his development. Also, the production showed me that; that play is even better than! I had formerly considered it. I For me, it stood out as the' one good thing that the fes-l five capital had to offer, and it remains a most exhilarating high point in a drab, disappointing Wellington weekend.