Clever commentary ends with a bag of bones

By NIGEL GEARING


In the final scene of Victory-Choices in Reaction Susan Bradshaw, played by Madeleine Hyland, emerges on stage carrying her husband's bones in a bag, her house burnt down. A broken man called Ball (Glen Pickering) is in tow, his tongue cut out.

Bradshaw drops the bag at the feet of her daughter, Cropper (Luci McCammon), who is incredulous. "That's not him," she barks.

Bradshaw's take on that? "I have been through quite some inconvenience for this."

Which would have to be one of the most understated lines in British playwright Howard Barker's work, set in England in 1660. The Civil War is over and the debauched reign of Charles II is under way. The story charts Bradshaw's three-year journey as she attempts to recover the remains of her husband who had died five years ago.

But society is being torn apart. All of Oliver Cromwell's key men have been executed, those already dead and buried are to be exhumed, their heads displayed on spikes. Bradshaw's husband was in the latter category, hence her mission.

Hyland, a third-year Unitec School of Performing and Screen Arts student, plays Bradshaw in her graduation performance and describes the role as her most challenging.

Bradshaw "goes beyond the point where most people could", Hyland says. "And then she goes further. She experiences such hideous things. She has to come to grips with a world that is so different from anything she has seen before."

Barker's violent work was first performed in England in the early 1980s. He describes his work as "theatre of catastrophe", not for the faint-hearted. Expect extremely coarse language.

With a cast of 12 playing 38 roles from puritans to beggars to kings, director Sarah Peirse is convinced this is the first time the show has been produced in New Zealand. Inquiries confirm this.

"Possibly because of the language and the large cast, commercially it would be considered ill-advised programming," Peirse says. "It is very much a comment on Thatcherisim and I think it is Barker's best work. Barker is a historian and the characters and events are a fictionalised account of England's harrowing descent into anarchy and moral decay. It's about the choices people must make to survive."

That theme is picked up by Hyland.

"In my research ... I've looked at the new right economic experiment that swept through New Zealand in the 80s. This play deals with the conflict between individual and community."

Peirse, also an actor, first directed Victories-Choices in Reaction in 1990 with graduating students at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. She is known for her award-winning role (in Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures) as Honorah Parker Rieper who was murdered by daughter Pauline Parker and friend Juliet Hulme in 1950s Christchurch. She also played Kate, a loving but detached wife who feels life is passing her by, in the 2001 film Rain, directed by Christine Jeffs.

She has been a visiting director at the Auckland Theatre Company. Her most recent credit there was The Bach.

Having seen this graduating year group in last year's Unitec production of Arthur Miller's classic The Crucible, Peirse suggested Victories-Choices in Reaction as a final production for Unitec.

Other cast members include Erin Williams, Christopher Molloy, Daniel Mainwaring, Ben Legg, Rohan Glynn, C.J. Shelford, Jonathan Allen and Ashley Hawkes.


On stage

*What: Victory-Choices in Reaction

*Where and when: Unitec Theatre, Nov 5-30 (Wed 6.30pm; Thu-Sat 8pm)