FREE THEATRE CHRISTCHURCH
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • A brief history...
    • Peter Falkenberg
    • Ensemble and Collaborators
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Jarry, Ubu, Pataphysics and Free Theatres
    • Training and Devising
    • Space and Design
    • Manifesto and Writings
    • Free Theatre Advisory Group
    • Te Puna Toi
    • Praise and Awards
  • UPCOMING
    • Erewhon: Over the Range
    • Digitising Performance
    • Endgame
    • Ubu Nights
    • Woyzeck
  • EDUCATION
    • Kidsfest and Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Research, Publication and Symposia
    • Adult workshops
  • VENUE
  • ARCHIVE
    • Productions 1979 - present
    • Image Gallery 1979 - present
    • TV3 Clips
    • Selected Reviews
  • SUPPORT

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Flashback #7... in 1991, Free Theatre Christchurch connects with Free Theatre Munich to present Heiner Mueller's HAMLETMACHINE

7/28/2017

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... simply the most exciting theatre piece Christchurch has experienced in years... HAMLETMACHINE's opening night full house proves that Christchurch audiences do support serious theatre
Lex Matheson, Reviewer, The Press
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If the 1980s had been about establishing a youthful, energetic presence in Christchurch, the 1990s saw exciting developments in Free Theatre's aims and growing influence. This included engaging with international contemporary performance artists and the founding of a dedicated Theatre and Film Studies Department (est. 1997) that unfettered the theory and practice of theatre and film from the traditional, marginalised existence in the literary dominated realm of English Departments. Canterbury University was the first in the country to do so and its Theatre and Film Studies Department quickly became successful with a rapidly growing postgraduate culture. This ultimately culminated in the emergence of the groundbreaking Te Puna Toi Performance Research Project in 2001.

While the company had engaged with past and current avant garde in the 1980s, it was perhaps a collaboration with Free Theatre Munich (est. 1970) in 1991 that really established the company as a noted presence in the international contemporary theatre scene. Falkenberg initiated the collaboration with this theatre company from his home town, inviting directors George Froscher and Kurt Bildstein to come to Christchurch to present a reimagined production of a Heiner Mueller work, HamletMachine. They had presented the work previously in Germany and the US. Mueller's work, considered the most important in Germany since Brecht, had never been staged in New Zealand, let alone Christchurch, and this offered the opportunity for local artists and the students of the growing Theatre Programme at Canterbury University to have access to international contemporary theatre through the making of it with established international theatre artists. On the strength of the international exchange, Free Theatre Christchurch secured an Arts Grant from the QE II Arts Council of New Zealand (later CreativeNZ). Remarkably, the company would not receive another CNZ grant until 2012 despite many years of trying with an extraordinary array of high profile, high quality work with a diversity of collaborators. 

HamletMachine is typical of Mueller's work in that it is based around a collaging of texts and monologue's, rather than conventional narrative or plot. In this instance, the work is concerned with what it means to be an actor - a concern that Falkenberg would return to in different social, historical contexts, including current project How Not To Be Hamlet? A combination of professional actors and students worked on the HamletMachine production, which took place around the Arts Centre, in Rutherford's Den and the Great Hall. It was a hugely successful production both in popular and critical reviews and paved the way for a series of dynamic projects through the 1990s. 

Below are some stills from a Nightline (TV3) piece on the production. The full clip itself can be found on the HamletMachine page.

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The Gym in 1908

7/28/2017

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A big thank you to Charlie Gates for sending this beautiful image of The Gym the year it was built. Originally the gymnasium for Christchurch Boy's High School (which occupied the buildings next door), it eventually became the home of Academy Cinema in 1976 when the university gifted the wider site to the city when it relocated to Ilam. The Academy occupied the building until the earthquakes of 2011 closed the entire site. As part of the restoration of the Arts Centre, the building was stripped back to its original form and strengthened. Free Theatre has occupied the building since September 2014.
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Interior of Gymnasium, Christchurch Boys High School, Christchurch. Webb, Steffano, 1880-1967 : Collection of negatives. Ref: 1/1-004026-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23100780
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Flashback #6... Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

7/23/2017

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Free Theatre's production of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant in 1988 marked a turning point for the company. The scrapping of the PEP (Project Employment Programme) by the Labour Government in its second term meant it was not possible to maintain a regular working group in the same way. At the same time, the relationship with the university had grown stronger with student interest in the INCO drama course growing to the point that a dedicated theatre programme was inevitable. With this in mind, the university had begun paying the lease for the theatre in the Arts Centre that the original members had built. University classes were taught in the theatre (renamed University Theatre) and it was via the Free Theatre that the university re-engaged with the site it had gifted to the city two decades earlier when the campus was moved to Ilam. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, in some ways, represented a transition with members of the group working with students from the university and collaborating with design students at the Christchurch Polytechnic. 

Before his career took off in film, Fassbinder had worked in experimental theatre. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant represented a crossover as it was first produced in the theatre (1971) before being turned into a film (1972) with his regular collaborators Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla and Irm Hermann. The film retains an intense theatricality and reflects the influence of Douglas Sirk melodramas on Fassbinder; grand, sweeping portrayals of everyday lives and relationships that in their excess reveal the machinations of the wider society on the individual - an hysterical scream of the repressed, reflecting internal conflict silenced by societal forces of conformity. In The Melodramatic Imagination, Peter Brooks described melodrama as the "text of muteness": "We may legitimately claim that melodrama becomes the principle mode for uncovering, demonstrating and making operative the essential moral universe in a  post-sacred-era". The sado-masochistic role-plays between three female protagonists was where Falkenberg began work with the actors to recontextualise Fassbinder's work for New Zealand in the late 1980s. 

Free Theatre's production subtly questioned the society of the time, epitomised perhaps by the popularity of TV series Gloss, considered "a coming of age" in New Zealand television. Gloss' representation of excess and 'yuppie' culture was seen as symptomatic of the 1980s. The introduction of 'free market' values had a profound, insidious effect on even the most personal aspects of the individual's life and relationships not to mention outlook on the world and 'reality'. Reality was shaped by the new, neoliberal economic perspectives. The Christchurch production saw Julia Allen in the title role of fashion designer Petra, following on from her collaboration with Falkenberg on Lulu. The production was notable for exploring these concerns via an innovative collaboration with designers with the designer clothes worn by the all-female cast and the designer furniture they sat on and moved around, all available for purchase. Prices were included in the programme - everything was for sale. The performance also began with a pre-show fashion parade with professional models, which in the context of the performance signalled a consideration of New Zealand's turn to 'free market' polices where every thing and everyone is for sale. Following Fassbinder's film, the Christchurch production also incorporated a musical backbone (always a strong feature of Falkenberg's work) that included Verdi and The Platters, heightening the sense of melodramatic excess alongside the excess of fashion that so typified the dramatic change in New Zealand society on the 1980s.

As Free Theatre continues to develop a key project, How Not To Be Hamlet?, which explores the effects of the 1984 social and economic reforms on New Zealand society, it is instructive to consider this formative Free Theatre production. As with so much of Falkenberg's work, like Fassbinder, there is a prescience and unflinching gaze at contemporary political life via the personal experience of the collaborators. Perhaps even more so than Fassbinder, who famously replicated his personal life on stage and screen (Bitter Tears a prime example), Falkenberg is closer to Brecht in finding through a conversation with his collaborators a political perspective that does not rely so heavily on his personal perspective. This is not to say Falkenberg is without a personal view but it is his ability to inspire questioning in the collaborators that allows the work to come into being, making it relevant and important to everyone involved in producing the work. This is evident in his theatre work and his foray into film with Remake in 2007. 

In a culture famously reticent when the subject of politics is raised, Free Theatre's approach to theatre elevates the experience to be a relevant gauge of the time and place. The company finds ways of provoking discussion that may not always be popular but that are nevertheless appreciated as essential by those that view art as a means of resisting the conformity of the status quo by making visible ideological perspectives that are hidden as seeming natural or inevitable. 
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Any life story that deals with a relationship or whatever is a melodrama and, for this reason, I think melodrama films are correct films. The American method of making them, however, left the audience with emotions and nothing else. I want to give the spectator the emotions along with the possibility of reflecting on and analysing what he is feeling. With Brecht you see the emotions and you reflect upon them as you witness them but you never feel them. That's my interpretation and I think I go farther that he did in that I let the audience feel and think.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1977

It's got a certain transparency about it, because if the clothes weren't so fashionable, so slick, there would be no transparency at all. Often women hide behind a glossy exterior of fashion and there's more to people than this superficiality.
Penny Bainbridge, Producer,
​The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

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Flashback #5... PEP scheme helps sustain contemporary theatre...

7/15/2017

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The development of a strong ongoing Free Theatre Group in the early 1980s was made possible by the Project Employment Programme (PEP) introduced by the National government of the time. A wider scheme across multiple industries, it also allowed artists to work in the theatre with a view to developing skills that would contribute to ongoing employment.

This allowed for a dedicated ensemble to develop in the new Arts Centre theatre the company had built in 1982. A diversity of works were produced in line with the company's manifesto:
To stage old and new rarely staged European plays in original translations, new New Zealand plays, and classical English texts in an unusual and experimental style. Emphasis is placed on non-verbal action and high production standards, discouraging the star system and encouraging long rehearsal and training periods in a company context.
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Not the worst misspelling over the years.

Productions through the early to mid 1980s ranged from works produced by Peter Falkenberg such as the company's magnificently gruesome King Lear, hauntingly beautiful Leonce and Lena and spectacular Lulu, to stagings of new works written by company members, including Nansi Thompson (Texts For Decomposition) and Stuart McKenzie (The Joffongract, A Letter from L, The Mortal Pleasure of Wanda Lust and The Rapist Over Susannah). Meanwhile, Robin Bond initiated with Electra what would become an ongoing series of productions of classical Greek texts that he translated and directed.

At the same time, a slew of imaginative new works emerged that exposed local audiences to international contemporary theatre through presentations of avant garde innovators from Brecht to Sam Shepard, Patti Smith and Peter Handke... Mahagonny, Cowboy Mouth, (both directed by Falkenberg), Action (dir. Carol Bellini-Sharp), Tongues (assisted by Bellini-Sharp and Falkenberg), The Ride Over Lake Constance (dir. Nick Frost), Red Cross (dir. Leonard Wilcox with Falkenberg) and Takeaway (dir. Falkenberg with Roy Montgomery). Alongside this, an education programme with immersive productions such as The Hunting of the Snark began to attract students. Current Free Theatre ensemble member Emma Johnston cites Free Theatre's Snark production as a most memorable early theatre experience. 

These productions served as the foundations to the emergence of a special new voice of contemporary theatre in New Zealand. The Press Arts Editor Chris Moore, previewing Faust Chroma in 2008 said: "For quarter of a century, Free Theatre has redefined cultural horizons and shaped Christchurch perceptions of contemporary theatre". With daring and determination, Free Theatre established itself in the 1980s as part of a tradition of Christchurch arts organisations and artists in the visual arts, music, literature and film that developed new work that was distinct and influential in the wider cultural landscape of New Zealand. 

We've yet to feature all Free Theatre productions on our website (its a big archive!) but below are a few pics from the productions mentioned some of which feature on the website (links above). You can also see images from productions over three decades in our archive gallery. 

Texts for Decomposition

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Leonce and Lena

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Action / Tongues

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The Hunting of the Snark

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Cowboy Mouth

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Mahagonny

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Lulu

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Flashback #4... 1984

7/15/2017

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Perhaps one of Free Theatre's best known productions of the eighties was 1984: the future is now. Inspired by Orwell's novel, the production (presented in 1984) became notorious for an interrogation process that audiences had to go through on entering the theatre. Led by chief heavies, Rudi Boelee and Quentin Wilson, the interrogators evicted audiences that did not conform, which led to one disturbed punter lodging an official complaint. Other highlights included an interrogation onstage in which the Ministry of Truth (led by Robin Bond as O'Brien) coerced everyman Smith (Charles Heywood) into conformity by placing a cage with a live rat over his head. 

Free Theatre's 1984 served as a point of comparison for the recent production of Kafka's Amerika - how the mechanisms of 'Big Brother' and state control have become more effective in Western society with a move from the more overt (think the riots of 1981 and the authoritarian imaginings of Smith's Dream/Sleeping Dogs) to the more insidious mechanisms of control, where surveillance both big (Five Eyes) and small (Facebook) dictates our everyday lives.

Directed by Peter Falkenberg, 1984 was the first of a number of productions that visual artist Graham Bennett contributed to as designer (the others included Salome, Mahagonny, and Crusoe). We will be hosting a new installation by Graham Bennett in The Gym in October - a work inspired by Bosch's The Gardens of Earthy Delights and a provocation relating to our use of water. 

Free Theatre's collaborations with visual artists as designers has become a key part of the company's work over three decades.

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Every social order creates its own reality which is backed up by propaganda, whether it is subtle or obvious – things like the work ethic, the marriage ethic and the desire for happiness and security. Any individual who stands out against these myths is treated with suspicion or down-right hostility.
Peter Falkenberg on 1984

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Free Theatre flashback #3... Ubu

7/4/2017

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​We'll never be able to explain Ubu. Ubu will not be defined... nor confined... what does it mean to release yourself... leaning to one side... and to be free?

Merdre.

In 1982, Free Theatre Chch presented Ubu Roi. Directed by Peter Falkenberg, and designed by Simon Allison, Neil Williams and Bernie Frankpitt the cast featured Craig Hood, Jo Briant, Nick Frost, Robin Bond, Helene Glover, Ruth Jones, Adam Phillpps, Charles Heywood, Rod Dundar and Mark di Somma.

When the name Free Theatre was chosen for the company (after a couple of other options didn't stick) a tradition was acknowledged and a political manifesto proposed relative to here. There was much discussion. The hope was New Zealanders (and those in Chch especially) would respond to a philosophy of pushing boundaries to innovate and experiment. The suspicion was that an old provincial stupor combined with a growing stupefying economic perspective would drown out the hope of change - "hey, you say it's free, so why do I have to pay? That's false advertising mate". 

And sure enough, that one has been fired at FT for years, as the market has become entrenched in our everyday lives.  

When we say the word 'free' (compared, say, to libre or freie), what springs to people's minds? To be released from expectation, custom, oppression, slavery in search of new hope and possibilities - innovation? Or stuff you don't have to pay for, a bargain, a waiving of cost, the logic of a market where exchange is predicated on growth - 'cos there ain't no such thing as a free lunch - mate? 

Freedom, here, is about money... it's about gain.

Yet, every time we question whether we should change our name, when the usual brand-oriented thinking of supporters and critics alike suggests we're shooting ourselves in the foot, we come repeatedly to the conclusion that it is the economic perspective that needs to change not us - and we must continue to work towards this by pointing out its many contradictions and inequities. 

For some, this is considered pigheaded and even arrogant. But the truth is that without resisting the supposedly inevitable fate of the market, we have no hope.

Without hope we end up trumped by fear.

​Since 2014, Ubu has held court in The Gym... searching for, and hopefully inspiring, hope.

A new production of Ubu Roi is in development for 2017/18...

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Craig Hood and Jo Briant in Free Theatre's King Ubu, 1982
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Free Theatre flashback #2... the Arts Centre and making connections inside and outside Christchurch

7/3/2017

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PictureLiz Braggins in Jean Cocteau's OX ON THE ROOF
With demand for a new, alternative theatre growing in the early 80s, and successful early productions under Peter Falkenberg, the newly formed group decided to build its own theatre in the Arts Centre. They took up the lease of an old lecture space in the Physics block of the Arts Centre and set about building a small 91 seat theatre, everyone contributing to construction costs including expensive soundproofing. Consisting mostly of staff and students from Canterbury University, the Free Theatre group became well known for a series of adventurous performances in the new space and surrounds, including outdoor performances in the North and South quads (near what was Annie's Restaurant), the former student union building (which became the Dux de Lux) and in the basement under the old Library. The basement area (later known as Nibelheim) became hugely popular for a series of Dada-inspired cabarets that saw the space and quads jam-packed with a diverse range of people, many of them identifying as non theatre-goers. The popularity of the new theatre and these events did raise the ire of private residents that had recently also moved into the Arts Centre – an initiative by Arts Centre management to raise funds for the cash-strapped trust. This led to a court case to evict Free Theatre from the Arts Centre that the judge eventually threw out on the grounds that the trust deed of the Arts Centre explicitly referred to this as a space for artists and art, not for private residents. 

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Nick Frost and Stephanie Johnson in Arthur Schnitzler's ROUNDDANCE, 1981, Southern Ballet Theatre, Arts Centre
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Jean Cocteau's OX ON THE ROOF, 1981
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Networking at the Canterbury University Staff Club: Peter Falkenberg (back to camera), Patrick Evans (right) talk to Vice-Chancellor Bert Brownlie (centre).
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One of the many very popular Free Theatre cabaret nights in the basement space.
​At the same time, as the Free Theatre was gaining new audiences, popularity and notoriety in Christchurch, links were being established with contemporary theatre makers in other parts of the country. Conversations were initiated with Amamus, Red Mole and Theatre Corporate. Falkenberg also collaborated with other theatre-makers, most notably acting as dramaturg for Tony Taylor’s production of Big and Little (Gross und Klein) by Botho Strauss at Downstage in Wellington in 1981. The production was considered by critics to be a bold, new signal for New Zealand theatre to consider other possibilities beyond the usual English literary theatre. Strauss was considered a bright light of the German avant garde at the time. For the Dominion, Ralph McAllister wrote: “I’ll dream that Wellington audiences will flock to see this, one of Downstage’s finest accomplishments”. McAllister claimed that he and Bruce Mason attended on multiple occasions, running from table to table, “applauding, stamping and calling out “Bravo!” in different voices”. Mason, reflecting on the relationship between art and theatre, had initially written a scathing review that seemed to scare audiences away: “Big and Little is an exercise in mountainous banality". However, in an unusual follow-up review in the Evening Post, Mason reconsidered the work, comparing it to the experimental work of John Cage and “credited it with making him consider afresh ‘just what a play should be and from what assumptions it proceeds. For this experience alone, I must thank Downstage’”. He would later conclude: “Finally, this production can be viewed as either a monumental act of courage or an equally monumental folly. I concede that it is the responsibility of a professional theatre to let us see, from time to time, a tough, thought-provoking even grueling play from Europe. I will end, therefore, by saluting Downstage for an act of courage”.
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The production was, I felt at the time, even more meaningful than the one I had seen at the Kammerspiele in Munich and gave me an incentive to make theatre in this country. On the other hand, the excellent lead actress that met me during a Court production in Christchurch later did not seem to find any more challenging work in New Zealand that would have made her stay and shared stories about the season of Big and Little, where on one night the three audience members present applauded a rat that run across the stage upstaging the actors.
Peter Falkenberg, Dramaturg

Most memorably, I played several roles in the four-hour-long production of Botho Strauss's Big and Little a visionary production inspired by Taylor's study trips to Germany. This was one of the first productions of this post-modern, existentialist epic outside of Germany and it demonstrated, not for the first time, Downstage being ahead of its time, a genuine leader in the arts in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
David O’Donnell, actor in production

Despite a desire to work together again, Falkenberg and Taylor were unable to make it happen in Christchurch. However, it has long been a feature of Falkenberg's work that he has attracted and been attracted to working with artists of high calibre with a view to really pushing the boundaries in search of exciting new work. It is one of the defining features of Free Theatre work. 
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  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • A brief history...
    • Peter Falkenberg
    • Ensemble and Collaborators
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Jarry, Ubu, Pataphysics and Free Theatres
    • Training and Devising
    • Space and Design
    • Manifesto and Writings
    • Free Theatre Advisory Group
    • Te Puna Toi
    • Praise and Awards
  • UPCOMING
    • Erewhon: Over the Range
    • Digitising Performance
    • Endgame
    • Ubu Nights
    • Woyzeck
  • EDUCATION
    • Kidsfest and Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Research, Publication and Symposia
    • Adult workshops
  • VENUE
  • ARCHIVE
    • Productions 1979 - present
    • Image Gallery 1979 - present
    • TV3 Clips
    • Selected Reviews
  • SUPPORT