Obituary: Francis Batten

Francis Batten founded Theatre Action in Auckland. Picture / Alexander Turnbull Library

* Francis Batten, mime artist, theatre director, psychodramatist. Aged 66

Francis Batten, who forged an international reputation in various forms of drama, began his career in Auckland. His work at that time is now judged a major contribution to drama in New Zealand.

Batten, born in Bath, England, emigrated to New Zealand in 1961. After completing a BA at Auckland University he moved briefly into secondary school teaching, then began his drama career.

He established himself as a talented mime performer and won an Arts Council grant to attend the Jacques Lecoq School of Theatre in Paris for two years.

He returned to New Zealand in 1971 and set up the theatre company Theatre Action, which lasted until 1977.

An expert on New Zealand theatre, senior lecturer Murray Edmond, of Auckland University, said Theatre Action created some of the major pieces of New Zealand theatre at that time.

There was a clown show called Once Upon a Planet (1972) and a large-scale drama about New Zealand history called The Best of All Possible Worlds (1973) which toured the country.

"Theatre Action introduced the actor training methods of Jacques Lecoq to New Zealand, which have been important to New Zealand theatre ever since," Edmond said.

Batten was also influential in playback theatre (a form of improvisational theatre) and psychodrama (a form of creative and therapeutic drama)

When he left New Zealand in 1977 to study psychodrama, poet Ian Wedde said he had made an "immense contribution" to New Zealand theatre.

Batten set up the Drama Action Centre in Sydney in 1980, which trained many New Zealand actors. Since then he conducted more than 300 workshops on aspects of theatre forms in some 16 countries.

In more recent years he was based in England. Last year he received a Life Time Achievement Award from the British Psychodrama Association.

Batten, who returned to Auckland in November, is survived by his wife Julia and three sons.

- Staff reporter