Both captured and embodied that elusive mix of air and light which has come to characterise the New Zealand identity. This dramatisation of their often fractious but enduring love is told through Angus' letters to Douglas, which are accompanied aurally by Lilburn's piano sonatas and visually by Angus' paintings.
As equal representations of two very private people these soliloquies reveal the capacity of their creators to be irascible, sensitive, sharp-eyed and clear-sighted and to suffer emotional turmoil. Fittingly, the dramatisation does not attempt to tell the story of their exploration of foreign sounds and media, as is still to some extent seen as a requirement in studies of New Zealand artists.
It is also a tale simply yet powerfully told. Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Michael Houstoun held the audience in the palms of their hands with perfect timing and attention to the mirroring of music and word.
The opening sonata (1956, second movement) is a dialogue between two distinct voices which parry and vie for dominance but remain intertwined. Likewise, the music in Moths and Candles tells of their shared pain, the fragility of their relationship, while the paintings look down on the graceful, careful embrace of mother and child, the fresh open faces of idealised and real children.
As most of the music and painting incorporated in the play emanated from the Otago region, Rita and Douglas makes an apt and powerful opening to the 2012 Otago Festival of the Arts.
Rita and Douglas is also important in that it ably reveals the coupled force behind these two iconic New Zealand artists.
- Marion Poole
