From the National Business Review November 12 2004
The night the fate of the free world, and the less-than-free world, was being decided by the US election results, Red Mole's Roadworks ensemble premiered its first production since the untimely death nearly two years ago of Alan Brunton, who co-founded Red Mole with Sally Rodwell some 30 years ago.
Directed by Rodwell, who also performs, The (Un)Known Island: Tales of Trade begins with a raucous band (trombone, clarinet, kazoo, cymbals, drum and other percussion) marching on to fete the crowning of the King (Bronwyn Bent). The King's speech is largely lifted from recent George W Bush utterances: "As we gather here tonight the civilised world faces unprecedented dangers ..."
Despite a continuing recession the kingdom claims to have been very generous to the less fortunate, yet pockets of poverty persist. The answer is to establish the King's Corporation and invest in other places. "No culture, no society, no language will stand on the way of our success!"
Advised by a bishop (Chrissie Butler) and an anthropologist (Ksenija Chobanovich), the King agrees to resource a mariner (Naomi Singer) to sail forth and discover an "unknown island." The fact that it turns out to be inhabited is almost beside the point. The King had no prior knowledge of it, therefore it didn't. And now they have discovered it, it does and it's theirs. Simple.
An easy-going system of exchange and barter ("If you have need of my pumpkin, you may have it and I have need of your rice") is supplanted with a cash economy. When those who grow the crops find the market-forced price is insufficient to cover their needs, they are introduced to the wonders of credit.
Thus the corporation gets the people to work, work, work to pay back their never-ending debt. Yet the market becomes the new god-head and because it has trained the people to believe in it and even love it, the corporation is able to claim success at a social level too.
"This land is ours now," they tell any doubters. "If you don't like it, go." So the "free world" becomes one that is there for the taking, by those with the know-how and skills to exploit the resource. And it this case it's better than free because the inhabitants of this hitherto unknown island now owe the corporation money!
Using shadow puppets, masks, models and other props with theatrical agitprop flair, this classic political theatre scenario is performed with great commitment and gusto by the above-mentioned plus Ruby Brunton, Cara Conroy-Low (who also plays a fine trombone) and multi-skilled musician Kieran Monaghan.
One especially potent sequence involves a chorus-delivered alphabet of the benefits brought by being liberated by the corporation, ranging from antibiotics though prostitution to water, weapons of mass destruction and (e)xtreme pornography.
The tacit assumption is, of course, that primitive cultures untainted by commerce remain uncorrupted. Yeah, right.
What does transcend the entertainment pizzazz is a profound sense of the interconnectedness of all living things: something no person, tribe or corporation can dominate to the point of control.
Rodwell punctuates the ensemble performance with readings from Brunton's The Chanto of Paradise and the finale includes his Dialogue: A Man and his Soul. Other text sources include Howard C Cutler MD, Carlos Fuentes, Eduardo Galeano, Caesar Vallejo and the ensemble.
It felt like an especially appropriate place to be, the night George W won the election.
It remains an important facet of freedom that such conscientious writers and performers may create such theatre events and compete (successfully this time) for state funding through Creative New Zealand so that all citizens, be they like-minded people, questing souls or the simply inquisitive, may exercise their freedom to engage with the show for an accessible ticket price (or a bag of rice, perhaps).
12-Nov-2004