Audience helps refine ‘slightly raw draft’

Playwright Carl Bland as the author in Nightsong’s new work The Burning House. Photos: supplied

Playwright Carl Bland is putting his "words" where his mouth is by performing his own work in a theatrical reading of theatre company Nightsong’s latest work-in-development, Burning House. Rebecca Fox talks to the company about putting unfinished work out into the world at Wānaka’s Aspiring Conversations.

A chance comment from an author about how memories become more important as you get older ignited Carl Bland’s writer’s mind.

"Sometimes it’s not you searching for the memory, it’s the memory searching for you. And I thought that was a very interesting thing," Bland, also artistic director of Nightsong theatre company, says.

It has become the inspiration for his latest play, Burning House. The play is based around the idea of an author returning home after 30 years abroad as a celebrated novelist to launch his memoir, The Burning House, with a talk at a Readers and Writers Week event.

"He has written a trilogy of books and has become very successful. So he’s kind of been a bit feted coming home, and I’m not sure if it was his ego that he said yes to the opportunity to headline the [fictional] Aotearoa Writers Festival," fellow Nightsong artistic director Ben Crowder says.

"He’s got a fictional version of his life that he likes to present, but during the session his past starts to speak back to him in various ways."

The concept was tested with a 25-minute excerpt staged at an Auckland bar, using some temporary props, which even pulled in writer Paula Morris to do the introduction as if it were a real festival.

"Because it’s set in a readers and writers’ festival, we set it up very much so that when the audience comes in, that’s the feel of it."

The interesting thing they discovered from that test was that the audience treated it in a slightly more literary way than if it were just a play, even though it does have all the theatricality of a play.

"In fact, I think some of the audience who were coming were maybe a little bit of that audience that might go to a readers and writers’ festival, be in a book club or that sort of thing."

The success of that reading emboldened Crowder — who started his theatre career at the University of Otago’s Allen Hall — and Bland, helping them feel more confident about the work.

"When you’re making a work, you’re never completely sure. And I think it was quite heartening how well it landed in its raw state," Crowder says.

With a full draft done, and some more material tested at a smaller reading, it seemed returning to Wānaka for Aspiring Conversations to present a reading — plus a conversation about the work and where it’s heading creatively afterwards — was timely, Crowder says.

"I think we’ll call it a theatrical read, because I think the idea of just sitting there and reading it could be interesting, but I think it doesn’t really reflect our work. It often combines different things that sort of sit equally. There’s language, but there’s also imagery."

The pair, who are makers of at least nine theatre shows incorporating humour, puppetry and special effects, such as Te Pō, Mr Red Light, I Want to Be Happy and The Worm, have booked an extra suitcase each so they can bring down some props they have created to add to the experience.

Nightsong artistic directors Carl Bland (left) and Ben Crowder pack in to the venue for a production of The Worm.

"This is the first time we’ve done something like this. It kind of appealed to us when it was talked about that it was really honest in that it wasn’t a finished work, but also we were going to put energy and time into preparing a version, an entity, that we’re happy for people to see and get that response early. So, I suppose like a draft of the show, a slightly raw draft."

For Bland, who will also be taking on the role of the author for the reading, putting the show out before it is a "polished" work is not easy.

"If I’m being honest, it’s quite challenging because I normally like to have the whole realised thing. But as Ben said, I think it could be quite exciting. And also, you’ve got to be open to hear what feedback is and audience reaction and all those things I think are probably useful for me as a writer to hear," he says.

Crowder will take the role of director, although there is a lot of back and forth between Bland and himself, as the pair have been working together for a long time.

"Already, the work kind of speaks a little bit about how it needs to be and how it will end up. But it also is, I suppose, a bit like clay at the moment, that there is room for it to move and shift a bit. It won’t be a whole new thing, but it can respond to responses."

Hearing when audiences laugh and are engaged and what they feel at the end is what they hope to learn from the reading.

"Those are the sorts of things that are interesting to us."

It has also been good for the pair to have deadlines to progress the work, which they hope will be completely finished and ready to stage in full early next year.

"There’s also nothing like a deadline in life."

The company has been busy touring Mr Red Light in Australia and has brought back The Worm for the Performing Arts Network Arts Market, hoping to get it programmed at festivals around New Zealand in the coming year.

"I’m one of those people that, whatever show I’m working on at that moment is my all time favourite show."

Now they will be concentrating on Burning House, and after its reading in Wānaka putting the full creation process around it with design and sets — possibly to be seen in full at Wānaka’s Festival of Colour in the future, Crowder says.

"That’s my evil plan."