According to Greek mythology, King Sisyphus of Ephyra committed the frightful crime of defying the gods. Instead of a swift execution, his punishment was eternal, trapping him in a cycle of pushing an enormous boulder up a hill in the underworld.
As soon as Sisyphus reached the top, the rock rolled back down, and his toils began again.
The wisdom of the ancient Greeks flows through time, and the story of Sisyphus has become a metaphor for humankind’s search for purpose, an existential conundrum explored in French philosopher Albert Camus’ 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus.
He argued that the only way to cope with the “Sisyphean task” of an endless, futile routine was to create a delusion that it was meaningful.
Sisyphus could have cheated the gods again, by choosing madness or death. But he kept on rolling that boulder. Therefore, Camus argued, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
One will never know. But Camus’ essay has become a key reference point in Indian Ink Theatre Company’s new comedy, Dirty Work: An Ode to Joy. The company’s 11th production, it features 22 choral singers, three actors and a pianist, and transposes the myth of Sisyphus to an open-plan accounting office in New Zealand.
The office is a tiny cog in an international tech corporation called Sisyphus Global Solutions, based in Bangalore. Its employees range from the middle manager to the contract cleaner, who usually works alone in the wee hours of each day.
The dull mood of the office is disrupted at intervals by Zoom appearances from the big boss, played by Indian Ink’s co-founder, writer and actor Jacob Rajan, who describes Camus’ essay as “weirdly hopeful”.
Rajan, who set up the company in 1996 with writer-director Justin Lewis, says they initially considered setting the show in a call centre.
“When we thought about this idea of working with choirs, we had to pick an environment where you have a group of people and give them a reason for being there,” he says. “But then we thought of the open-plan office. There are still a lot of them around. There’s been a narrative that’s been built up over the years trying to make that meaningful – that you are part of something. You’re a team, you’re a family, all of that kind of business speak that is just trying to get all of your little chickens to lay more eggs.”
Put like that, the open-plan office is hell on Earth, but humour softens Indian Ink’s subversive message.
“It is holding a mirror up to society and asking how do we value people,” says Rajan. “If you are going to do comedy, you have to start with some sort of truth. It is truth in pain. In my reading, I was astonished. There was one book that said 85% of the world’s working population actively did not like their jobs … There is an element of control we are not even conscious of any more. That is scary when you step back and try to apply this layer of meaning in your life when so much is out of your hands.”
The concept of propelling Dirty Work’s comedic trajectory with song was inspired by Rajan’s 87-year-old mother, who sings in three community choirs.
“I have been going along to recitals and thinking, ‘This is gorgeous.’ They so love singing, but they never get an opportunity to do it beyond Christmas and the odd performance for the public to come to see them.
“So, I thought it would be wonderful to give choral singers the opportunity to actually be in a show.
“But you can’t commit people to a theatre rehearsal process for five weeks and imagine they will all arrive on time. So, then the creative challenge became how do you, with minimal rehearsal, throw a choir into a show and make them seem like they are embedded in it? We slowly worked out a system where it is seamless.”
Enter John Rosser, CNZM, the founder-director of chamber choir Viva Voce and a former NZ Opera chorus director who is considered the choral maestro of New Zealand.
“I should declare that I am the husband of the general manager of Indian Ink, Jude Froude,” Rosser says with a laugh. “My involvement is that I know Jacob and Justin and they had been toying with this idea of writing a work with a choir because they liked the idea of music in the play.
“They asked me to give them some strong advice on how to work with choirs, and that is my expertise and my life’s work.”
The trick, says Rosser, has been to insert eight experienced choralists into the line-up of 22 singers, which will change during the show’s five-city tour. Singers were recruited via social media and letters to choir directors, with 80-90 applicants tested during three rehearsals in last year’s development season.
The mood-setting songs include Lorde’s Royals, a Bollywood-style Hindi song, the traditional waiata Matangi arranged as a choral work by Robert Wiremu, and Beet-hoven’s soaring Ode to Joy from his 9th Symphony – all set to piano played by music director Josh Clark.
Although the singers play the office workers alongside actors Justin Rogers, Tessa Rao and Catherine Yates, they are not expected to act.
Each singer, says Rosser, will receive “real-time instructions” from a customised book (disguised as a puzzle book), with prompts about what page to turn to from a tiny LED screen on their desks.
“Choirs would not normally get to perform on stage,” says Rosser. “Big community choirs or choral societies have a wonderful group experience, but there is a non-soloist pressure. You rely on others and the sum is very much greater than the parts. In this work, they are told they will not be exposed or embarrassed in any way. They will have a hugely fun night, led around gently by three professional actors. It’s a great process.”
Indian Ink shows – its debut Krishnan’s Dairy kicked off the company in grand style in 1997 – have a broad international appeal. Since then, they have played to more than half a million people in New Zealand and across the world. They have agents in the United States, and have toured the UK, Germany, Canada, Singapore, India, Fiji and Australia.
“This show will go international,” says Rajan. “There is a lot of interest from America, and we will replicate the model there once we figure it out here. It’s easily translatable because there are offices everywhere with the same kind of issues and there are community choirs all around the world.”
Rajan agrees with the suggestion that he’s been lucky to enjoy a higher level of job satisfaction than the downtrodden souls in Dirty Work.
“I’m the son of Indian parents and I was supposed to be a doctor, so all of this is very alien, and rightly so,” he says. “My mum and dad, when he was alive, were worried the bottom was going to fall out and I had nothing to fall back on but, touch wood, it’s been more consistent than many of my friends’ careers over the past 26 years.”
Dirty Work: An Ode to Joy: Q Theatre, Auckland, June 16-July 2; Theatre Royal, Nelson, July 21-23; Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch, July 28-29; Soundings Theatre, Te Papa, Wellington, August 2-11; Baycourt, Tauranga, August 18-20.
