Seeing Ourselves on Stage
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Seeing Ourselves on Stage: Revealing Ideas about Pākehā Cultural Identity through Theatrical Performance Adriann Anne Herron Smith Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Otago 2010 Acknowledgements Thanks to my Kaitiaki Rangimoana Taylor My Supervisors: Henry Johnson, Jerry Jaffe, Erich Kolig (2004-July 2006), Martin Tolich (July 2007 onwards) Thanks to my children Ruth Kathryne Cook and Madeline Anne Hinehauone Cook for supporting me in this work. Thanks also to Hilary Halba and Alison East for their help, encouragement and invigorating discussion; to friend and poet Roma Potiki who offered the title for this thesis and also engaged in spirited discussion about its contents; to Monika Smith, Adrienne Jansen, Geesina Zimmermann, Annie Hay Mackenzie and to all of my friends who have supported this project; Thanks to Louise Kewene, Trevor Deaker, Martyn Roberts and Morag Anne Baillie for technical support during this project. Thanks to all of the artists who have made this work possible: Christopher Blake, Gary Henderson, Lyne Pringle, Kilda Northcott, Andrew London and to Hilary Norris, Hilary Halba, Alison East and Lisa Warrington who contributed their time, experience and passion for the work of Aotearoa/New Zealand to this endeavour. ii Abstract This is the first detailed study of New Zealand theatrical performance that has investigated the concepts of a Pākehā worldview. It thus contributes to the growing body of critical analysis of the theatre Aotearoa/New Zealand, and to an overall picture of Pākehā New Zealander cultural identity. The researcher‘s experience of being Pākehā has formed the lens through which these performance works are viewed. The argument underpinning the research is that theatrical performance does not represent a literal recreation of a culture, but rather is a representation of its mythical aspects. Accordingly, what is placed on the stage are images, visual, aural, and kinetic, of what a culture most aspires to be, and what it fears it might become. Therefore this work requires a discussion of the nature of theatrical performance and its reception by an audience. The research is centred on the play Home Land by Gary Henderson; the opera Bitter Calm by Christopher Blake and Stuart Hoar; the dance theatre work Fishnet by Lyne Pringle and Kilda Northcott; and the jazz songs of Andrew London of Hot Club Sandwich. The performance texts are analysed to establish the way in which they create meaning. The methods used are performance analysis and close reading of the text and the method of phenomenology. This analytical work has been expanded by interviews with writers and performers in the respective performance fields and by a small audience survey. The result of this analysis is a detailed discussion of selected theatrical representation of Pākehā cultural identity focusing on the three performance elements: irony, the performance of emotion, and the scenographic iconography of the-land-on- the-stage. The research looks particularly at ideas and attributes that can be represented in performance. The thesis covers concepts of Pākehā cultural identity and biculturalism, considers the idea that the particular environmental conditions of the land have imprinted themselves onto the nation‘s theatrical expression, and seeks to uncover how a Pākehā cosmology is represented in theatrical performance. The question of cultural identity in the literature, visual art and music of Aotearoa/New Zealand has been an important one for many decades. The country‘s distance from its nearest large neighbour, its colonial past, Pākehā relationships with the tāngāta whenua of Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Māori, and the fact that Pākehā are descended from the settler culture of Aotearoa/New Zealand have contributed to an awareness of cultural identity. The expressions of local, Pākehā, cultural identity, considered in the selected performances, therefore reflect an identity which has been formed as a result of the colonisation process. As a consequence, many of the themes and iconographies discussed are not unique to Pākehā, but draw on their heritage of European culture, with the infusion of local experience. iii Table of Contents ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................... III TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................... IV LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................... VII PREFACE .............................................................................................................................................. IX CHAPTER ONE ..................................................................................................................................... 1 SEEING OURSELVES ON STAGE – FOUR CASE STUDIES OF PĀKEHĀ PERFORMANCE - INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Outline of the works ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Performance space ............................................................................................................................................. 4 Structure of the thesis ........................................................................................................................................ 5 CHAPTER TWO ................................................................................................................................ 12 METHODOLOGY- ACCESSING THE RAW DATA ..................................................................................... 12 The interviews .................................................................................................................................................... 12 Conducting semi-structured interviews ................................................................................................... 14 Transcriptions .................................................................................................................................................... 16 Audience Survey ................................................................................................................................................ 18 Performance analysis - investigating a text of a culture .................................................................. 20 Accessing „soft‟ data in performance analysis ..................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER THREE ............................................................................................................................ 29 METHODOLOGY - UNPICKING PERFORMANCE ...................................................................................... 29 Performance: a definition ............................................................................................................................. 29 Imagined communities, “Third space” and performance ............................................................... 33 Myth and performance ................................................................................................................................... 37 Representing the „Other‟ ............................................................................................................................... 39 Phenomenology: absence and presence ................................................................................................. 42 The mimetic faculty .......................................................................................................................................... 47 Mise-en-scène - what the senses perceive .............................................................................................. 49 Performing an archaeological dig ............................................................................................................ 52 CHAPTER FOUR ............................................................................................................................... 55 CHARACTERISING PĀKEHĀ ......................................................................................................................... 55 Aotearoa/New Zealand – „many cultures‟ but only two peoples (Pearson 1995 20)........... 56 Biculturalism ...................................................................................................................................................... 61 Pākehā, a people changed by their environment ................................................................................ 65 Language ............................................................................................................................................................. 69 Speaking of ourselves - Expressing the difference that is Pākehā ............................................... 72 Pākehā attributes .............................................................................................................................................. 76 Men, Mateship and women of „bad‟ character .................................................................................... 81 Theatrically