Play justified says producer
By
KAY FORRESTER
Doug Clarke, the producer of the Riccarton Players’ controversial entry in the New Zealand Theatre Federation one-act play festival, does not regret his choice of play. He strongly defends the selection of Howard Brenton’s “Christie In Love” as the Riccarton entry. A selection vindicated, at least to some extent, by the Riccarton Players winning a place in the festival finals, to be held in Whangarei on September 13 and 14. It is the only South Island finalist of six.
The play received much criticism when it was performed at the divisional finals in Nelson six weeks ago. About 30 of the audience of 100 walked out during the performance. It was also criticised by two or three people during the Christchurch area finals, Doug Clarke says. His main defence for the play is that it is based on a true event and real people. Howard Brenton is a favourite playwright for Doug Clarke and “Christie In Love” is the third Brenton play he has taken to the festival finals in the last five years.
He acknowledges that “Gum and Goo” (1980) and “The Education of Skinny Spew” (last year) were not as “potentially offensive” plays as “Christie In Love.” “Howard Brenton does not write nice plays about nice people. He writes about real people people. John Reginald Halliday Christie did exist and he was convicted and hanged in 1953 for the murder of five women. The authorities
thought he could have murdered as many as 15. “That is not nice but that its what the play is about.” Mr Clarke says he chose the play because he wanted something different to the usual “drawing-room drama.” He had intended to produce a New Zealand play for the festival but advertised auditions for the cast of eight brought only three actors to the theatre. “There was obviously not the interest for that play. So I rethought and consulted my Brenton book and came up with ‘Christie In Love.’ It is a play that I have wanted to do. It has a cast of three so I decided to do it.” The cast of three are Martin Phelan, who plays Christie, Richard Anderton, who plays the Constable, and Mark Hyde, who plays the Inspector. The only other character in the play is a female dummy. The dummy is one the group has made for the play. Doug Clarke says he priced a rubber doll as stated in the playscript but “the price of rubber dolls for sexual perversion was a bit high. We made a dummy instead.” The use of the dummy prompted a letter from an angry West Coast feminist to Doug Clarke. “She said the use of the dummy was degrading to women and I wouldn’t have anything to do with the play had the roles been reversed. That is not true. The play is written with a dummy in it. And the dummy is pretty much maligned so I doubt that we could have played the part with an actress.
The play is not written that way anyway.” The one thing about the play that caused him some concern was the use of four letter words, Mr Clarke says.
"I decided to be true to the playwright, they had to stay. I told the divisional organisers that the content of the play might offend. The programme said that, so people had been warned.” Mr Clarke says he was not upset by the Nelson walk-out, but he was not happy about the noise and commotion people made as they went. “People are certainly entitled to their opinions. Those who left made a lot of noise and one repeatedly banged a fire-exit door. That was not necessary. The cast carried on regardless. They were tremendous.” Mr Clarke says the Nelson audience “does not like outsiders.” Nelson was the only centre in which there was any fuss about a touring play, called “The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin,” by Garry Beveridge, about a transvestite elocution teacher.
“That play did not cause any fuss anywhere else it played,” Mr Clarke says.
“For instance a Nelson group did ‘Canterbury Tales’ recently. That is a musical but it ”is definitely a bit grubby. There was no bother at all, that I know of with that.”
“There only seems to be flak when it is an outside group.” The group decided to stage a two-night season of “Christie In Love,” on Friday and Saturday evening, to raise money for the air fares to the one-act festival
finals in Whangarei. Mr Clarke shrugged his shoulders when asked about any negative reaction to the play during the Christchurch season. “Who knows. I would not be surprised if the police are here on Friday night.”
What about reaction in Whangarei? “Again, who knows. I expect there will be some flak. I hope there is not, but
Does he think the play might attract the raincoat brigade?
“No ... but I’d like to think we would get Patricia (Bartlett) along in Whangarei.”
Is he not being a shade flippant?
“I don’t think so. It is a good play, not a nice play certainly,' but we have warned people of that. "Brenton is now being recognised as a British playwright with something to say. His work is even being performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company — although not ‘Christie. In Love’. Mr Clarke believes the Riccarton Players is the first New Zealand group to perform the play. He is not aware of there having been any criticism when it was first performed in London in 1969. Another of Brenton’s plays, “The Romans in Britain,” commissioned in 1980, did trigger some reaction. Morals campaigner Mrs Mary Whitehouse tried unsuccessfully to have the play banned in England. Doug Clarke says the Riccarton Players will certainly be trying to win the festival final next week.
Play justified says producer
Press, 4 September 1985, Page 20
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