Preaching to the Converted

Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku is a documentary film featuring interviews with ten people who have some connection to the earth and then environment. They range from Māori wanting to set up a commune, ‘wise women’ who make nettle soup and potions and poultices out of herbs and grasses, a bird caller seeking to repopulate the forests with feathered wildlife, to GM crusaders creating seed depositories.

By far and away the best interviewee was Craig Potton. He spoke of his environmental activism to protect forests and other iconic landscapes. His intelligence, patience and commitment were striking.

I was also impressed by Jim O’ Gorman, the organic farmer who talked about tilling and turning the soil until even stuff that had previously been considered practically toxic, could repair itself and produce a fertile base in which to grown fruit and vegetables.

Kay Baxter, a seed saver, might have been inspirational as she fought to know the origins of her food and protect the seeds from artificial hormones. But, at the end when someone asked what the seed hikoi had achieved, as a group of people marched on Parliament, the very bleak and simple answer was returned, ‘nothing’. And there-in lies the problem.

The tag-line to this film is, ‘This is a unique, number-eight wire Kiwi-style approach to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.’ That is just typical Kiwi hyperbole. This film will not rival An Inconvenient Truth because it is already preaching to the converted. There are no urbanites or people who might people who might represent role models to anyone not interested in growing a bushy beard and knitting their own jumpers.

I may well be accused of being shallow but I began to long for an interviewee in a suit; someone who looked like they might actually have a real job and live in a real house in the real world, a little bit more like the majority of us.

It’s all very well for Hugh Wilson, tree farmer, to say we should all abandon our cars and cycle for 5½ hours from Banks Peninsula into Christchurch, but it’s simply not practical and so it began to lose me. If people are meant to be moved enough by this to change their lifestyle, then shouldn’t it be just a little bit more appealing?

Many people who might have been targeted were put off by the excessive spiritualism – I know because they told me. It was book-ended by a Tuhoe healer and a Waitaha kuia. The latter is apparently a tribal woman elder with a ‘vision of healing through community within the ways of Waitaha’, whatever that means – there was a lot of mystic expansion and not a lot of material explanation. As for the healer, I am unlikely to take health advice from someone who is clearly so overweight and unfit that they can’t even open a gate without gasping for breath.

I wasn’t even really taken with the much vaunted photography. The shots of the landscape were nice but the subjects were often out of focus. Perhaps this was deliberate – the main attention should be fixed on the land – but it made it hard to watch. And I would question the soundscape too; running water and birdsong is the sonic backdrop to the bush, not irritating music that makes you feel as though you are trapped in a lift in one of those tacky tourist souvenir shops.

The passion of the director is to be commended. This film project is wholesome and it’s worthy. But it’s not for me. I would rather watch a documentary about the incredible and inspiring Craig Potton. If Kathleen Gallagher makes one of those, I will definitely be watching.

Creative craftsman

Chris Cree Brown has forgotten I am coming to interview him. He emerges from the side of his house, wiping his hands on his cords. He has been building a chicken coop, but he is quick to stop and invite me in. His wife makes us a pot of coffee and home-made biscuits miraculously appear on a plate. This is Canterbury hospitality after all.

Soon we are sitting in Chris’ studio as he plays fragments of his electro-acoustic music through the massive speakers attached to his computer. He talks me through Icescape and Under Erebus, fascinating compositions that emerged from a two-week stint in Antarctica as a result of the Artists in Antarctica programme in 1999.

Despite the bright sunshine and the tui in the trees outside, the drums, cymbals and bells transport me to the coldest continent. Chris has mixed ‘real’ sounds of footsteps crunching through the snow and the raucous aggression of skuas with the almost unbearable pitch of strings conjuring daggers of ice plunging into the frigid sea.

He takes pity on me desperately clutching my coffee cup for warmth and we turn our attention instead to Pilgrimage to Gallipoli. He worked on this during a sabbatical in 2008, but the original sounds were collected on his trips to Turkey in 1994 and 2001. It is a highly-charged piece in which the sound of a camera shutter clicks between interviews, battle sounds and speeches from a tour guide showing them around the former battlefields.

Flies buzz, soldiers cough, shots fire and Abide with Me blends seamlessly into a muezzin’s prayer. It’s all incredibly evocative and was premiered a month before our interview at a cinema in Christchurch. Chris explains that he thinks of himself as a New Zealand composer and as such, he makes work about New Zealand themes. “I guess it’s an interest of mine to find out who I am and where I belong and that is in New Zealand so that’s where I work.”

Chris lectures in music and composition at the University of Canterbury School of Music, and he was able to work on this piece due to a research grant. Having spent his formative years living on porridge, he is extremely grateful to be the recipient of a steady income and these grants, but he is slightly wary of the way they are awarded. You get ‘brownie points’ if your work is played overseas, but as a distinctive Kiwi composer, Chris isn’t sure how much foreign interest his compositions will garner.

As we ascend to the kitchen and a blazing log-burner, Chris explains his theory on composition. “Composing is about finding out more and developing; getting an idiosyncratic voice. You create a personality in sound, but it needs developing.” His eyes light up as he explains his latest project – a piece for clarinet and tape.

“I’m getting the clarinettist to take the bell off the instrument which slightly alters the pitches, so it’s not a true scale. And then in another part she’s taking the clarinet apart and putting it together again without one piece so there is a whole series of different notes. The challenge is to try and get to know those notes and try and find out what works and what doesn’t, but that’s very interesting – that’s developing and learning.”

Electro-acoustic music has come a long way since Chris started out 30 years ago. Back then he says there were probably fewer than 20 people doing it. “I started out with tape recorders before there were computers, and you had to use a razor blade to cut these things and press them together, so technology has altered particularly electro-acoustic or sonic art immensely.”

I am a bit baffled by the whole concept, but he patiently explains it to me in simpleton’s terms. “Electro-acoustic music means you use any sound source at all – usually one from the real world rather than an electronic synthesised one – and you use the computer to manipulate that, so you can get down to a pure level of sound – a bit like a biologist getting down to the cellular DNA in a molecule and seeing why someone might have red hair rather than brown.”

Just as I think I’m beginning to understand how all this works, Chris introduces another string to his bow, if you’ll pardon the naff musical metaphor. He also likes to design and construct sonic sculptures, such as sea tubas, which produce sounds in reaction to the waves. His brother, a civil engineer, helps him with the drawings, and then he likes to build the prototypes.

There is interest from the Dunedin City Council in his sea tubas, but they have not been built as yet. He worries that part of the problem might be the current economic downturn. “Even if they had the money to build it, or to raise the money for it, they might not like to be seen at a time where people are losing their jobs, to be building expensive artworks.”

Chris is most proud of his Aeolian harp (which makes music when the wind passes over the strings). He drew the line at the plastering, but he enjoyed learning to weld and is happy to do these things himself. “I like to think that I’m hands-on. If I’m going to do something I’ll do it if I can. Not only do you save money, but by doing it you get better insights into what you’re trying to do, and you’re more likely to come up with something that will work.”

I ask him if he likes the contrast of the very practical side with the more creative aspects of his job and he smiles ruefully, “I think I would have to say yes. I mean if you asked me halfway through building a chicken coop, using wood that had built a cubby house that was hardly ever used and trying to get nails out, you might not get a positive answer”.

He is practically bounding with eagerness to show me the prototype of the harp so we head out to the paddock where it sits curved and beautiful and, unfortunately, silent. There is no wind today. Perhaps Wellington City Council should install one.

In 2002 one was displayed in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens as part of the Urban Arts Biennial. “I was scared it might not work. But when I put it in there and heard the sounds they were just beautiful. I knew that the whole thing, sonically at least, was going to be a wonderful success, and I was just over the moon.”

On his website, Chris explains the physics that make this instrument sing, which is probably just as well. In the Middle Ages several people were burnt at the stake for witchcraft as a result of making these magical instruments that played by themselves. I think we’re all grateful that those times are behind us – none more so that Chris Cree Brown.

Shakespeare's Greatest Hits

All the World's a Stage

Circa Two, 29 May - 27 June

Ray Henwood’s presentation of Shakespeare’s greatest hits is a comfort for a cold evening. That there is nothing out of the ordinary is not a criticism – rather it is because, as he explains in one of his many addresses to the audience, that the bard’s conceptions have passed into common parlance.

Dressed in a morning suit against a simple curtain for a backdrop, Henwood illuminates the stage with a range of speeches, soliloquies and sonnets inspired by Sir John Gielgud’s Ages of Man. He begins with the prologue from Henry V in which the chorus begs to ‘on your imaginary forces work’. For the next 90 minutes, Henwood takes us on a veritable round-the-bard-trip as promised.

He recites some beautiful poetry with evident passion in a voice you could listen to all day. Explaining that even the non-beautiful creations get the poetry, he portrays characters as diverse as Caliban (The Tempest), Angelo (Measure for Measure), and Lorenzo (The Merchant of Venice). The Queen Mab speech from Romeo and Juliet is spirited and full of fun.

Each section is introduced with a few words or a brief discourse. In a segment on the nature of sleep, Henwood ranges from Macbeth’s – ‘that knits up the ravel’d sleeve of care’ – to Prospero’s – ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.’ The simple but effective lighting (Jennifer Lal) generally remains true to the ethics of the limited technical intervention, as actor and director (Peter Hambleton) alike choose to paint pictures with words.

As you would expect, Henwood is particularly captivating as Lear and Henry V. He includes lots of Henry V including the infamous ‘Once more into the breach’ speech and the ‘little touch of Harry in the night’. The best of these snippets is when he plays both Falstaff and Prince Hal imitating Henry IV (Henry IV: Part One).

Attempting to persuade us that there are as many strong female as male characters (which is patently untrue) Henwood gives us Lady Macbeth on receipt of the letter from her husband narrating what greatness he has been promised. He is not entirely convincing in this role, not just for the obvious reasons, nor does he seduce us as Iago (just as an aside – Peter Hambleton’s Iago is actually the best I’ve seen in New Zealand), although he draws attention to his complexity.

Shakespeare was a master at creating complexity of character – ‘what a piece of work is a man’. This always reminds me of the Blackadder episode in the second series in which Edmund has his Aunt and Uncle Whiteadder over for dinner, at the same time as hosting a drinking party. When his aunt takes him to task after someone stumbles in wearing comedy breasts, ‘Edmund! Explain yourself!’ he replies, ‘I can’t. Not just like that. I’m a complicated person, you see, Auntie.’

Shakespeare’s characters are not representative of a certain singular trait and Ray Henwood is excellent at embodying diversity. Nowhere is this more pertinent than in his Shylock, who is more than ‘just a Jew’. He gives an interesting insight into the character – there are other Jews and other money-lenders who weren’t hated as Shylock was. It was more his disposition than his religion that was despised, yet, with our (entirely understandable) fear of Nazism, we worry that this loathing is anti-Semitism.

No one else in the Shakespeare canon is a stereotype, so why do we assume he is? As Henwood points out in one of the more intriguing passages of the evening, surely this says more about the audience, with our modern sensibilities, than it does about the bard.

Other interludes are the sonnets which provide a quality counterpoint to the plays, and the morsels from other works. Having directed the opening scene of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters, myself, I found this as recognisable as Shakespeare’s works. Less familiar, although equally enjoyable, to me was the short excerpt from Rinse the Blood off My Toga.

Mainly All the World’s a Stage was like ‘An Evening with William’, channelled towards the fans with little from the more obscure works or the comedies. Like a concert where you only really want to hear the hits and not the worthy stuff from the experimental album, this was clearly a success with the mainly elderly audience. Having said that, this would work really well in schools as an introduction to Big Bill.

24hrs in the Wairarapa - the next 12

7am Him Outdoors is keen to mitigate some of the effects of last night’s alcohol so he gets up early and goes for a run. The minute he steps off the porch, it starts raining. I snuggle back down under the duvet with my book and wait for him to return and bring me a cup of tea. Spoilt? Me?

9am He’s back, I’m up and we have breakfast. The cottage is thoughtfully stocked with fresh bread, home-made biscuits, butter and jams – this reminds me a story a friend told me of when she and her husband were in France.

In the morning she asked for ‘preservatif’, but the owner of the pension looked at her aghast and refused to supply her with any. She and her husband were frowned at throughout their stay and only after they left did they realise that they had not been requesting preserves at all, but rather condoms to accompany their coffee and croissants.

11am We drive out to the Cape Palliser lighthouse. I have a bit of a thing about lighthouses. I believe in the blend of beauty and practicality, and many engineering feats embody this. I also love the romanticism of living in a circular building in a remote location and saving ships from rough seas and wreckers. I thrilled to Daphne du Maurier novels as a kid and was always happy to wander the steep cobbled streets of Cornish towns imagining the smugglers – the hearty tea of scones with jam and cream was also a significant plus I seem to recall.

At Cape Palliser there are no winding streets or handy cafes, but there is a lighthouse with an imposing view over the surrounding coastal scenery; the southern-most tip of the North Island. We march briskly up the 250 steps to admire the lighthouse. As we descend the wooden staircase, a couple with their small child look up, a little daunted. ‘Is it worth it?’ they ask. ‘Oh, yes’ we both answer simultaneously.

11.30am I get out of the car to take a photo of the lighthouse back on the rocks and nearly step on a fur seal. There is an entire colony of them lying about right next to the gravel road. I can’t believe I didn’t notice them before, but now that one of the rocks has moved, I see there are loads of them. Apparently, this is the largest breeding colony of fur seals in the North Island. We stop for a while and watch them snooze and scratch and shuffle.

We examine and photograph a colourful fence studded with buoys at Ngawhi. As we get back into the car, a bloke comes towards us with a dog straining on a chain. He asks if we are lost, but not in a manner which suggests he would be willing to help. We hastily retreat and he stands and watches us leave without a welcome to return any time soon.

The tractors/diggers/graders (I don’t know the correct terminology – it’s boy stuff) are lined up on the beach ready to drag the boats in and out of the waves. We wander amongst them with their grey backdrop and imagine them working hard. Some people want to anthropomorphise them and several have names such as Tana and Tinky Winky.

2pm Before we head back over the hill into civilisation we stop at Featherston. According to the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, it was ‘until recently… the ugly duckling of south Wairarapa’s towns.’ There is no information as to why the ‘until recently’ bit is included. The town died when the railway closed. The line still dissects the main street, but nothing is happening here. The weather has turned cold and overcast, and the place isn’t exactly inviting.

Nevertheless, we stop for lunch at the Cornucopia Food Store & Café. I think it is the only thing open on this grey afternoon. The soup and bread is very tasty and heartening. We are fortified enough to return to Wellington where I head off to rehearsal.

For more pictures of the weekend - check out my week in pictures

24hrs in the Wairarapa - the first 12

10.30am We pull into Martinborough after driving over the hill and head to the nearest café for breakfast. Reading the Sunday papers, sipping our cappuccinos and tucking into a plate of Mexican style eggs in Café Medici seems a fabulous way to fortify ourselves for a big day.

11.30am We stroll around Martinborough, which sits on the site of New Zealand’s first sheep station. Established by Irish immigrant John Martin in the nineteenth century, the streets are curiously laid out in a grid along the lines of a Union flag. The park in the centre where they meet features a small but poignant cenotaph.

We discover a couple of those home ware shops that sell candles, kitchen utensils and notepaper. At Peonies I buy a handful of cards while Him Outdoors rolls his eyes. The wallpaper is gorgeous and the people are pleasant.

12.30pm We drive to Haythornthwaite cottage and it is not yet ready for us. This doesn’t bother us at all as we park the car, dump our bags and set off on our own wine trail.

12.35pm The friendly and persuasive chap at Tirohana Estate pours a glass of pinot noir for Him Outdoors and a chardonnay for me, and books us in for a five course dinner later that night. It is only a short stumble from the cottage where we are staying, so we reckon it will be a good plan.

We sit out on the patio which is clear but chilly. Bob the dog accompanies us, but he has lots of fur. A party arrive and look at the menus, but they soon adjourn indoors telling us that they are not used to it – ‘We’re not from England’ they say, having noticed our accents. They are obviously not from Wellington either.

1.30pm The bloke from Schubert is keen to talk to someone – he is meant to be filling in his tax return. He has lived in England so we talk about football and cats and eating baby octopus – I’m not sure what those last two have to do with England, but I get the impression he will chat about anything rather that contemplate the complexities of the IRD.

The Tribianco they sell here is deliciously unpretentious and we buy a bottle to take back to the cottage. It is a wonderfully drinkable blend of chardonnay, pinot gris and muller-thurgau, with all the benefits of the tasty trio. We also pick up a Marion’s vineyard pinot noir and a sweet Dolce both of which we plan to ‘cellar’, or at least get home in the car.

2.30pm We clink off to Margrain where the lady serving the tastings is more reticent as she has many groups to serve, and probably no forms to fill in. The tasting notes more than make up for the experience, however with their blend of information and ridicule. For example, the chardonnay ‘brings an air of expectation as it works its way over eager taste buds with all the subtlety of a stealth bomber’.

Margrain also do a Methode Traditionnelle which they have named La Michelle after the lucky, lucky girl ‘who has recently returned from a decade of study and travel to join the family business’. Some people have all the luck – my mum is a teacher and my dad works with computers, and they both drink down the pub. Oh well, we bought a bottle of the bubbles which are, ‘Clean and tingling, it shows good manners while introducing itself then wags its tail in sheer delight like an overzealous Labrador puppy’.

Him Outdoors, as always, favours the pinot noir – ‘The nose is eager and brimming with warmth and generosity as it rises fragrantly from the glass, presenting juicy prune fruit combined with spicy tamarillo and plum chutney aromas. Grilled prosciutto on warm rye sprinkled with cracked black pepper tantalises while a hint of hedge-pig nest ensures that the wine is at once fruity and complex, like a teenage love affair.’ Should I be worried?

3.30pm There is still a tiny space left in our rucksack and half an hour of wine tasting time left, so we weave our way through sheep-studded vines to Martinborough Vineyard. Here a very friendly young woman raves about Toast Martinborough with us and we convince her to attend the Beervana event in Wellington at the end of August. Once we explain that there are lots of different tasty beers and hardly any fat men in lederhosen, she is more than amenable.

Meanwhile we try a fine range of wines, along with a load of other people who are picking and choosing (somewhat more selectively than us, it must be said). We decide to take home a beautifully balanced chardonnay and a gorgeously sexy Te Tera pinot noir. Guess who selects which?

4.30pm Back at the cottage we sit out on the deck to catch the last of the rays of sunshine as they filter over the vines. It is quiet and still out here and we have plenty of bottles to choose from as we sip at the fruits of somebody else’s labours. Mark comes round to light the fire and by the time we move back inside the cottage it is roasty toasty.

There is a selection of videos we can get out for free so we sit curled up on the sofa by the roaring log burner and watch Miss Potter and Kinky Boots. Both are pretty terrible – particularly the former but then I can’t stand Renee Zellweger and should have known better than to watch an American try to play a British icon – but we are comfortable and happy.

7.30pm We almost don’t want to leave, but we have dinner waiting for us across the road so we walk out into the chill night air. We are welcomed back to Tirohana with a glass of Sauvignon Squeeze and seated at a table by the fire. The ambience is fantastic and the service is exemplary throughout the night.

And the food is certainly something to write home about. For starters I have salmon fishcakes with a dill aioli on greens while Him Outdoors goes for the signature Kingsmeade Blue and broccoli soup served with fresh homemade bread. Main course is Moroccan crusted rack of lamb on a jewelled couscous served with a fruit tagine for me and fillet of beef, dauphinoisse potatoes, seasonal vegetables and wine jus for Him, although he mutters profanities about the word 'jus'.

All of it is so delicious that each mouthful is a delight. We are caught between wanting more because it’s so good but knowing we have eaten sufficient. We both have the Warm Apple strudel with a vanilla bean ice cream for dessert and then we finish up with fresh filter coffee and petit fours. I love the language of food – there is an art to making those menus sound as good as they taste.

10pm After Him Outdoors has waffled on to the guys at the restaurant about Burnley’s promotion (it’s a topic that they obviously find intriguing) we stumble back to our accommodation. With all that wine sitting around it would be rude not to have a nightcap, so we stir up the fire and sink a pinot before bed.

Blow by Blackening

The Blackening
Bats Theatre, 10 – 27 June

We are looking forward to this play. Various reviews have described it as ‘homegrown theatre of unease’ with ‘considerable dramatic tension’ (John Smythe); ‘a New Zealand version of Sam Shepard’ which is ‘all very powerful, intensely theatrical, melodramatic, and occasionally poetic’ (Laurie Atkinson); ‘one of the most polished productions you’ll see this year, [and] one of the most deeply disturbing’; ‘this script is pitch black [and] scary, taking us into unsavoury psychological territory’; ‘This is quality work. You won't leave the theatre with a smile on your face and a skip in your step, in fact you might just want to sleep with the light on for a while...’ (Lynn Freeman). So far; so intriguing.

And it’s got Jed Brophy who, as I know from watching Trainspotting and Skin Deep, is an excellent actor. So, as I say, we are looking forward to this play.

The set (Tony De Goldi) doesn’t disappoint – it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen at Bats; the carpet of leaves crunching under foot in the frosty atmosphere; the gnarled tree with a pile of apples beneath; the side of a caravan with blinds drawn; the washing line strung off to the side hung with floral dresses; a swing seat like a crucifix or a portal calmly positioned centre stage right – all hint at myriad possibilities and high expectations.

One character sits sharpening an axe as we file into the theatre. His rhythmic strokes and compulsive commitment auger bad things to come and they synchronise with the obsessive concentration of the other character who rocks gently to the music in his headphones – each isolated in their private world. Then the birdsong flits across the senses (superb sound by Stephen Gallagher) and Jed Brophy enters.

He is Mal (first bludgeoning symbolism – the clue is in the name) and he has returned from somewhere to the family orchard. He has been away for ten years and doesn’t know that the apples have got blight and his younger brother Broody (music man, played by Jack Shadbolt) fell out of a tree when he was ten, landing on his head and resulting in a disability that leaves him with the mental age of six.

He (and the audience) is helpfully told all this by the axe grinder, Dan (Jonny Moffatt), in clipped tones and ill-fitting overalls. This workaday outfit contrasts with Mal’s city suit, as he spins yarns about being a manager and a pilot, none of which turn out to be true. Dan is all repressed something-or-other – rage; sexuality; resentment; tenderness; your guess is as good as mine.

Mal alternates between smiling conviviality and flaring temper, while Broody is awkward but adorable with childish gestures in an adult’s body. They seem to be getting to know each other and Mal builds Broody a go-kart so he can enter a race, even though Dan won’t let him go beyond the gate into the wide world (that’s us – the audience).

Neither will Dan let Mal sleep indoors, and he sets his sleeping bag out among the leaves and under the stars. In the moonlight he thinks he sees May, his former girlfriend and Dan’s wife, but she turns away without speaking to him. So did he see her or was she a dream, or is she a ghost (she’s all dressed in white and we’ve never seen her)? We’re told he hurt her, but he loved her and then he left her, and he is surprised she has settled down with Dan. But has she? It starts to get confusing.

He wakes up to a beautiful dawn and a perfect cross fade – I’m noticing the lighting (Jennifer Lal), which may not be a good sign. Things seem to settle down to normal, or whatever passes for that on an orchard miles from anywhere with suggestions of psychosis. With signalling verging on the semaphore, Dan says they have to chop the trees down to prevent the disease from spreading. Mal finds an apple still clinging to the tree. He plucks it and bites into it but it is rotten and he spits it out at us – right at us; that’ll teach us to sit in the front row.

Pop, who used to thrash the brothers when they were boys, is still on the scene. He emerges from the caravan with a cane in his hand and a hat pulled over his eyes and he roams through the trees looking for Broody. Mal steps up to the swing and takes the whipping on his behalf. Clearly Jonny Moffat is playing Pop, but the question arises, is Dan playing Pop? The caravan appears to be the tiring room and we wonder whether the characters are acting out other characters for themselves more than for us.

May appears once more; again she is wreathed in white and is clearly Jack Shadbolt – there are titters from the audience at the sight of ‘her’ hairy masculine legs protruding from her nightie. But this time she is clearly Broody; Mal is alarmed and Dan disturbingly allows himself to be seduced. The lingerie drops to the floor and is removed to a dress-up box in which the hat and cane are discovered. My friend asks, ‘what is going on?’ Her husband tells her to shush.

Mal puts on the dress and is intimidated by Dan into tears and recriminations. What happened to May? According to Dan, she slit her wrists after Mal left her pregnant. Her name itself expresses uncertainty and implies there are other factors. Is the relationship between Dan and the personification of May physical? Is this another outlet for the repressed emotion in Dan which explodes (Pops) into violence?

The emblematic apples are the death of Mal – quite literally as he chokes on one, after stuffing his face, knowing they are poisoned. The fairytale and biblical elements are overwhelming. He brought a knife with him which he gave to Broody. As Broody toys with it at the end and looks dreamily into the distance, we are left to ponder what he will do with it. Will there be a sacrifice, and if so, of whom?

The bows are a highlight as the actors shake off their multiple personalities and finally connect with the audience. As we leave the theatre we are all bemused. Friend’s husband says he couldn’t engage with the play – judging from the audience response, he is not the only one. No one seems to know what was going on, although they don’t want to admit it lest they seem ignorant.

So they fall back on pretension – exhibit A; ‘Since the opening of this production, I’ve heard some audience members express discontent at the staging conventions (role doubling etc) confusing with the symbolism in the narrative, making the plot hard to follow. However, I found this served to intensify my understanding of the text, in which much of the pleasure lies in attempting to decipher this world.’ (Fiona McNamara). Well doesn’t she think she’s the clever one?

The only thing I can’t decipher is whether it’s the fault of the writer (Paul Rothwell) or the director (Paul McLaughlin) that this play makes no sense whatsoever. Due to the tight production values and the complex characterisation, I think the director can largely be excused. I blame the playwright. When I got home in answer to Him Outdoors (who had wisely refused to come – ‘I won’t like it’) I praise the set, the sound, the lighting and the acting. He nods sagely; ‘Say no more’.

Quite a quote

Thanks to my dear friend who reminded me in a comment on my last post of one of my favourite quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche. ‘What does not kill me, makes me stronger’ is something I often chant to myself while struggling through a triathlon or a particularly daunting day at work.

I was thinking of quotes this weekend when at my writer’s group, someone mentioned one of Jack Kerouac’s essentials for his spontaneous prose method of writing: ‘Be in love with your life’. This is a wonderful sentiment, although sometimes hard to follow when you are stuck in an office with the wind and rain howling and lashing outside.

But at least I am not stuck out in it. I have food, shelter, and love – so really, what more could I want? I have a job that I don’t hate and I live in a beautiful (albeit windy) part of the world. I have a loving husband, a great family, fabulous friends, and an adorable cat. I have had a good education and enjoy fine health and the ability to pursue my theatrical and sporting interests.

And I am lucky – I know it. When I see people living in rubbish tips in the Philippines or dying of disease and starvation in Africa, or bound by restrictive fundamentalism in many parts of the world, I think ‘There, but for the grace of god, go I’ (attributed to John Bradford). Another of my favourite quotes is from Cecil Rhodes (although I have also seen it attributed to Rudyard Kipling): ‘To be born English is to win first place in the lottery of life'. At first glance this smacks of arrogance, but I believe it is actually humility – we do know how lucky we are.

But luck plays its part only to a certain extent. After that it is up to us to determine our fate, or, as the great William Shakespeare said; ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ But in ourselves, that we are underlings'. We have to make the difference, as Jean Jacques Rousseau pointed out; ‘Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains’.

Man by his very nature will always try and achieve greatness, and he may often do this at the expense of others – ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’ (George Orwell) – whereas the converse nature of man is that someone will always try to preach tolerance and right the wrongs of inequality. ‘Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too'. (Voltaire).

Of course, the Bible echoes this attitude – ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Honesty and tolerance are the golden rule to live by, and once again good old Bill steps into the breach; ‘This above all: to thine own self be true’. These two tenets of humanity provide some of my favourite quotes: ‘A man who loves whisky and hates kids can’t be all that bad’ (WC Fields) and ‘Someone said football is a matter of life and death, and I said, Listen, it's more important than that’ (Bill Shankly).

This is just off the top of my head and I realise, looking over this list, I have missed out many funny, witty, pithy sayings, but these are more than comedy quips – they are mantras for modern living, without the popular psycho-babble. What are yours?

The other thing I notice is that all of my favourite quotations are from men, and I haven’t even mentioned Oscar Wilde. There could be some form of heated debate as to why this should be so, but for now let’s leave the final bons mots to Emmeline Pankhurst: ‘Deeds not words!’