As the looming general election cranks up the heat, a touring play is poised to restore a little content to proceedings.
Wellington-based guerrilla theatre group The Bacchanals is bringing its production Once We Built A Tower to Otago next week, hoping to focus minds on a significant chapter in New Zealand political history and highlight some of the issues that once featured in political discourse.
Written by award-winning playwright Dean Parker, the show is about the construction of the Waitaki Dam near Kurow between 1928 and 1934, and how a workers' welfare scheme became the inspiration for a progressive and controversial Labour Government policy.
Parker says he wrote the play in response to a documentary about the welfare reforms introduced by Britain's post-war Labour Government.
''I thought, hey, that's a great idea, because we have the same story here with Labour's 1938 Social Security Act. And our Social Security Act has such a great story behind it, how it came out of a workers' medical aid scheme on the Waitaki dam site in the early 1930s.
''Of course, the other thing, the most important thing, is that when you write about the past, you're making comments about the present.''
The timing of the play is no accident.
''Elections are times of gross hypocrisy,'' Parker says.
''Once We Built A Tower is about the opposite of that. It's about people at the bottom of the heap organising together to try to bring about changes in their lives. It's about politics as hope.
''But it's even more appropriate with the release last week of Nicky Hager's new book, Dirty Politics. The closer that political parties come in their policies, the greater is the need for the sort of personal vilification and scummery that Cameron Slater and Judith Collins and John Key's right-hand man Jason Ede indulge in. Policies get so similar, all that you've got to define your opposition is sleaze.''
Parker says the stage is an ideal place to discuss such matters, and the musical-cum-documentary production of Once We Built A Tower handles some heavy issues.
Desperate for jobs during the Great Depression, workers embarked on the dangerous mission of damming the Waitaki.
During the project, there were nine deaths and more than 540 injuries.
A levy was introduced on workers' wages to fund a doctor and ambulance, a scheme pioneered by Gervan McMillan, a medical practitioner.
Dr McMillan later took the idea to Parliament as a Labour Party politician, leading to the creation of a welfare state with free medical care that saw New Zealand become the envy of the world.
Originally staged at Wellington's Bats Theatre earlier this year, the play is heading home to hydro country, with shows in Kurow, Twizel and Omarama, among other places around Otago and South Canterbury.
The Bacchanals is a multi-award-winning company with an ethos that theatre should be accessible to all.
Members describe their theatre as ''rough and ready'' and they play in local community halls.
In the same spirit, there is no admission fee, although koha is appreciated.
Donations for petrol, spare beds and other touring necessities are accepted.
Parker says the Bacchanals is making a wider statement about theatre.
''We have a stage in Auckland where you can pay $57 to see a show and it can feel intimidating going along. I've never really felt at home there, even when it's been something I've written!''
The striking failure of theatre here, today, is if you wanted to know what was happening, what the undercurrents were, you wouldn't go to the theatre.
Theatre's not really alive in the sense of being part of the national conversation ... I recently heard a dismal term used by New Zealand actor Stuart Devenie: 'corporate theatre': theatre whose whole reason for existence is to do with a moneyed class, expensive tickets for expensive customers, entertainment that's aimed at them, opening nights whose audience consists entirely of the sponsor's clients.''
By contrast, the playwright hopes the the raw and honest style of Once We Built A Tower strikes a chord in Otago.
Catch it
Once We Built A Tower plays at 7pm at:Twizel Events Centre, August 27
Tekapo Community Hall, August 28
Omarama Community Centre, August 29
Kurow Memorial Hall, August 30
Oamaru Scottish Hall, September 1
Otago Pioneer Women's Memorial Association Hall, Moray Pl, Dunedin, September 2
James Cumming Wing Lecture Theatre, Gore, September 3Balclutha Theatrical Society Hall, September 4
Miller's Flat Hall, September 5Clyde Memorial Hall, September 6
For further information visit thebacchannals.net.
