Friday Five: Nativity Plays

One of our Christmas traditions (well, we've done it twice, which makes it a tradition, surely) is to watch Love Actually on Christmas Eve. I'm looking forward to it again this year. Generally we are all boozed and emotional so we shed tears and sniffle through the 'You've also made a fool out of me and you've made the life I lead foolish too' bit, while laughing at the dancing around No 10 in socks bit.

I'm always bamboozled by the fact there is an octopus and a lobster in the nativity play, but fair enough I suppose. We never had anything as random in our nativity plays, but I went to a fairly conservative C of E school. Do schools even still perform nativity plays in England or is that considered too separatist?

5 Characters I have played at school nativities:

1. A tree - it was a cedar tree, which is associated with healing, cleansing and protection. One of the Psalms (92, if you're interested) mentions that 'the righteous shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon'. The cedar tree is named from the Sanskrit word, 'devdar' meaning 'timber of the gods'. Junipers are also a form of cedar, and they give us gin, for which we are truly grateful. No doubt my six-year-old self interpreted all this through arboreal embodiment, thus negating the need to ever go to drama school.
2. A shepherd - I got to carry Lamby onto stage, and on our heads we wore tea-towels, which we held in place with rubber quoits from the gym. PC-ness wasn't a thing in mid-70s Buckinghamshire.
3. An angel - I wore a white sheet. You could tell I was an angel and not a ghost because it didn't cover my head and I was covered in tinsel.
4. The Angel Gabriel - apparently this was a promotion, but I wanted to be Mary so I sulked, and when I was meant to say, 'Fear not' to the shepherds, I yelled 'Fear Me!' 'I am Mighty and Dreadful!' instead.
5. The Narrator - l got to say all the words, which made me happy and kept me from terrorising any shepherds. 

Epiphany in rehearsal

Our first Twelfth Night rehearsal was a read-through, which is fairly standard procedure. Our second was another read-through but this time we had all translated our own lines into modern English. I found this really interesting and there were several lessons learned. Here are three of them:

1. Because people were only translating their own lines, some didn’t think about the speeches that followed. Some of the comic interchanges don’t work if a person hasn’t thought to use a word that the next person puns with. This proves the fundamental way a play works – that all the dialogue is interconnected and no one person, whether they be the lead or the comic relief, can consider their speeches in isolation.

2. Many had thought that the modern read-through would be shorter than the original, expecting the traditional Shakespeare speeches to be unnecessarily wordy. In fact, they were the same length. Modern speech may be much more economical, but it is also less colourful, having lost many idioms and phrases.

Things the sixteenth century peasants knew are no longer common knowledge. Words such as cuckold or cockatrice require lengthy translation, such as ‘man who has been betrayed sexually by his wife and another man, so now has horns growing out of his forehead’ or ‘fabulous beast hatched by a snake from an egg laid by a cock, with a serpent’s body and the legs, wings and head of a cock, which can kill people just by looking at them.’

Sure, sometimes the classical allusions may spin things out a bit, but they also enrich and delight, not to mention reveal an insight into the character and create a bond with the audience. After all, there is an argument that culture is based on shared stories and mythology.

3. This play is funny – the humour comes through clearly and it is not all visual, as some people contend. When people drop the ‘thee’s, ‘thou’s and ‘marry sirrah’s to make it flow in their own accent and vernacular (Shakespeare did not have the squeaky snipped vowels of the antipodes in mind when he penned his dialogue, which is why his plays can sound so awful here), they can really appreciate it.

"He’s a very fool and a prodigal" becomes 'He’s a right flash wanker' and it speaks to us as the bard intended. Of course, some of it defies translation, particularly the iambic pentameter and the rhyming couplets. There is a reason it has passed into the canon of literature and the litany of cliché.

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.”

Turbine - whatever turns you on

Turbine, SEEyD Theatre Company
Downstage Theatre, February 13 – March 7

‘We’re the Saudi Arabia of wind!’ is a pretty appealing tag-line for anyone who lives in Wellington. Turbine presents the ‘for and against’ opinions about wind-power, which is meant to represent all the angles and spark heated debate among theatre patrons.

SEEyD Theatre Company is known for this approach and has previously brought their ‘issues based theatre’ style to many a topic including immunisation, poaching, genetic modification and spiritualism.

You either like this style or you don’t – there are bare bones of plot on which to hang the flesh of the arguments and you are meant to make up your own mind about the resolution because the play won’t provide one for you. Some consider this a provocative challenge; others deem it to be a lazy cop-out.

The problem with Turbine is that there seems to be no counter argument. The people who protest against wind power are simply Nimbys and are made to look ridiculous through speech impediments, or inadequate internet-based research. They worry about things that might never happen and, in personalising their concerns, they try to preserve something that has already gone. Nostalgia is not always a good thing.

There are myriad possibilities as to what the unleashed power sources could provide, but for ease of viewing they are distilled into two potential outcomes. In a great piece of theatrical interpretation we are allowed a glimpse of good and bad future – exactly the same lines spoken by the same characters but with a very different inflection resulting in disparate meaning.

One of the highlights of the staging is the white board walls on which members of the cast draw and erase various energy related paraphernalia. Trees are cut down (with power tools) to make way for the wind turbines. While some consider these to be blots on the landscape, I think they are beautiful. The ones gracefully emerging Venus-like from the water off the Danish and Norwegian coasts are fabulous.

But the toasters, kettles, computers, microwaves and ovens that we use in our daily are all ugly. So will we abandon them; of course not. We want these things, but we don’t want to have to think about the moral implications of their presence. We need power. (I expect a future SEEyD production to focus on the necessity and availability of fresh water.) Individual wants are pitted against the common good in an almost capitalism vs. socialism debate.

The main characters are a mother named Gail (Emma Kinane) struggling to look after her autistic son Ariel (Tim Spite) while her irascible daughter, Susan (Lee Smith-Gibbons) also lives at home. Into the not-so-happy-home comes Mark (Nick Dunbar) who works for the power company responsible for the proposed turbines and takes a shine to Susan. The actors also play various other peripheral characters, and they do it very well, but there is no cohesive story.

If it is meant to be a love-story, it is highly implausible that the suave Mark (who is neither a hero nor a villain, which he could so easily have become) should be interested in the narrow-minded Susan. Smith-Gibbons plays her perfectly, hiding her insecurity and lack of substance (the type who gets a tattoo in the small of her back as a substitute for personality) behind a façade of constant confrontation, and thinks she’s tough because she writes erotic fiction. Incidentally her characterisation of the more rational and intellectual judge is very good and helps demonstrate her acting range.

If it’s a study of parenting under trying circumstances, then I would have liked this to be further explored. Emma Kinane does an excellent job of portraying the long-suffering mother with a warmth and compassion verging on frustration. I wanted to know about this exasperated character trying to pursue her own life amidst the love and pain involved with raising a demanding son who doesn’t adapt well to change.

Tim Spite plays the autistic young man with a range of personality tics and physical twitches. In a demanding juxtaposition he also plays his own father with a hard and brutally rebuffing edge. The balance could be in his favour as a disability is thrown in so we are automatically on his side, or are we? He is an unpleasant character with his verbal and physical attacks and his excessive horniness – it’s never comfortable watching someone dry hump a cushion.

Spite the writer is as unafraid to push boundaries as Spite the actor. One of Smith-Gibbons’ characters is Maggie, a glasses-wearing, lisping, epileptic protestor. Ariel causes her to have a seizure on stage by repeatedly flicking the light switch on and off due to some element of compulsive disorder. Judging by the laughter from the auditorium, this is comic, but who decides that epilepsy is funny?

Apparently we, the audience, do, as we decide everything else about this play, and consequently our futures. Good, challenging stuff. There is a role for trial by theatre, and if SEEyD Theatre Company are judge and jury, we are executioner.

Christmas tradition

Yes, I ‘do’ Christmas, and it seems there is a recent resurgence of people admitting they like it too. What’s not to like: friends; family; presents; food; drink; James Bond and a celebration of all the good things in life? And there’s the healthy dollop of tradition – I love a good bit of tradition.

Among the best traditions are those you incorporate into your own family, such as hunting down the perfect Christmas tree. We get ours on the 23rd December – it’s summer here and pine trees don’t last that long. When we lived in Queenstown, they grew like weeds and, because they aren’t native, you were considered to be doing society a favour if you went and chopped one down.

Him Outdoors also has his birthday that day, so I would send him out of the house with the boys to get them out of the way while I finished off whatever Christmas jobs were necessary for the big day. They would return triumphant like worthy little hunter gatherers and reward themselves with beer after potting the tree. It became a ritual.

Everyone who came into the house between then and Christmas morning had to hang an ornament on the tree, and we placed a fairy on top. Previous incarnations of said fairy have included Eric Cantona and Roy Keane – not Robbie of course, as he would be more like an angel. I would have had Ronaldo for obvious reasons, but I couldn’t bear to have that winker in my house in any shape or form. (Now we just have a tiny tree because we live in a little appartment and it sits on the table looking festive.)

After that, we sit and talk, play games, eat, drink, read, do jigsaw puzzles and have an open-door policy for anyone else who is far from home without family, or looking for some peace and quiet away from theirs. Sometimes we get a ham from His Outdoors’ employers with which we make everything from salads and sandwiches to curry and stir-fry. We have chicken butties on Christmas Day and plenty of bubbles, and some special food for the cat which he doesn’t eat because he’s fussy – he’s a pedigree, don’t you know.

That’s our tradition – keep it simple. I suppose it’s what Christmas means to you and all that, but I don’t want unnecessary pressure at this time of year – or any time come to that. I try to avoid the shops and frantic commercialism and the rabid Christmas music. I love carols, but I hate those ‘jingle bell rock’ and ‘rocking around the Christmas tree’ tunes with their enforced sense of jollity which feels more like desperation.

I try and do the Christmas cards early, but I’m on my own here as Him Outdoors doesn’t help. He grumbles that he hates Christmas and if his parents get a card they should count themselves lucky. Apparently the ‘circular is so tacky’. I have no problem with this, as it’s a good way to keep in touch, but why do we only do it once a year? I am writing cards to people so if you haven’t got yours yet, don’t worry, you will, but it might not be in time for Christmas. In fact, as I haven’t put them in the post yet, it certainly won’t be in time for Christmas.

We are told it’s the thought that counts, but so many people still expect gifts tied up with ribbons, and dinner with all the trimmings. So to stem the rising tide of consumerism we are encouraged to make little tins of biscuits and other homemade gifts to prove our nurturing domestic goddess skills. You’ll notice men aren’t expected to do this. Why are we meant to have more time and inclination just because we’re female? Steamed puddings bring a whole new meaning to pressure cooking and if we haven’t got cranberry sauce, who cares? Does it really matter?

I went to church at the weekend. I sang the carols and said the prayers. I was generally filled with peace and goodwill to all mankind. The pageant was cute even with Joseph gurning throughout and Mary looking like she was about to burst into tears. The Indian girl with the wings who stood in the pulpit with arms outstretched to represent the Angel Gabriel was my favourite (that was the part I always got in the school nativity play).

But then the children started racing up and down the aisle and clambering all over the pews; shrieking and wailing. One kid even had one of those electronic computer things that bleeped and blipped all through the service so you could hardly hear a word. I tried to drown it out with ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. ‘Why don’t the parents teach them respect?’ I wondered, and then I put it in a bubble and let it go. It’s Christmas after all.