Free Theatre Christchurch: Past, Present and Future

Introduction

Established 30 years ago, Free Theatre Christchurch is one of the longest running theatre companies in the country and is certainly New Zealand's longest running producer of experimental theatre. It has been a major contributor to performance culture in New Zealand and played an important role in the Christchurch community, a point noted by The Press in 2008, in an article celebrating a remarkable history: "For quarter of a century Free Theatre has refined cultural horizons and shaped Christchurch's perceptions of contemporary theatre."

This page gives a brief rundown on the history of Free Theatre Christchurch, our way of working, and some recent successes, with a view to upcoming plans and initiatives.  

A Brief History

Free Theatre was established in 1979 by a group of students and staff at Canterbury University. They wanted to experiment with theatre, incorporating unusual styles, forms and texts, in an attempt to create new, entertaining and vibrant theatre in Christchurch. After initial success and keen interest, the group decided to form a permanent working theatre cooperative, and built the University Theatre in 1982 in the Arts Centre as a base for their experiments. They adopted the name Free Theatre in homage to European predecessors Freie Bühne in Germany and Théâtre Libre in France, striving for productions to be free from social, political and aesthetic conventions.

In 1982, Free Theatre registered as an incorporated society. The original Free Theatre group put forward a mission statement that remains at the core of ongoing Free Theatre work: 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. From the start, the emphasis has been on non-verbal action and high production standards, discouraging the star system and encouraging long rehearsal and training periods in a company context.

In the 1980s, Free Theatre became well known in Christchurch for a series of influential productions that included: Woyzeck ; King Ubu ; Round Dance ; King Lear ; The Joffongract ; 1984 ; A Ride Across Lake Constance ; Cowboy Mouth ; The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny ; and Lulu. The Free Theatre Group also staged a number of incredibly popular Cabarets in the 1980s, presented in what is now known as Nibelheim, the basement space below Te Puna Toi and the SoFA Gallery in the Arts Centre. This led to complaints from Arts Centre residents, who went to court with the aim to expel Free Theatre as tenants. The case was eventually thrown out of court.

The Free Theatre has continued to exist because of the passion of its many contributors for a theatre in Christchurch that would allow them to experiment and innovate. In the 1990s, a string of performances received critical acclaim: HamletMachine, Salome, MedeaMaterial, Crusoe, Murderer Hope of Woman/The Philosopher's Stone and Bakkhai/Diotek. During the 1980s and 1990s, a wide range of emerging and established artists, including poets, filmmakers, sculptors, writers, musicians, dancers and actors, collaborated within the Free Theatre to create provocative and entertaining work.

Past Free Theatre collaborators include: Stuart McKenzie, Stephanie Johnson, Nick Frost, Robin Bond, Roy Montgomery, Bill Direen, Rudolf Boelee, Lilicherie McGregor, Graham Bennett, Helen Moran, John Dean, Peter Robinson, Mark McEntyre, Elizabeth Woods, Alan Brunton, Te Rita Papesch, Haani Huata, Tai Huata, Tony McCaffrey, Lawrence Wallen and Werner Fritsch. Many returned for the celebrations in 2008, sharing war stories and hatching plans for future collaborations, following a special performance of Faust Chroma ,

More recently, Free Theatre has also ventured into film-making, with the feature-length Remake shortly to be premiered and short film Diana Coppelia currently in post-production. As with theatrical productions, our film work is collaborative and experimental. Remake , for example, literally remakes the stories of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, with a rich helping of Genet's The Maids. The filmmakers act out and mix in their own life stories. Remake can be read as a murder mystery, a satire on Christchurch contemporary life, or a DIY attempt to make a New Zealand new wave art film, where the confusion between art and life becomes both comic and tragic.

Peter Falkenberg: Founder and Artistic Director

At the heart of Free Theatre is founder and Artistic Director, Peter Falkenberg. In a chapter titled 'Theatre of Unease' for the recent Performing Aotearoa (2007), Peter proposes a theatre that: " would intentionally look for the ephemeral, the indeterminate and the risky in classical and new texts as well as in devised performances ". This kind of theatre, he says, would work with the actors' social and psychological existence: " the desires and problems of the performers, uncouth, rough and sometimes seemingly lacking in style, would be made the object of training and rehearsal, and be mixed with the text or content of the performance.   Out of this crucible, a performance could take form which would offer audiences a less easy, but more satisfying, reflection of themselves ".

Of devised performance, Peter wrote in 'Why Devise? Why Now? (2005)':

Perhaps instead of conforming to a fixed script which is always in danger of being frozen in some other place, time, and ideology, it is better to look for identity through a provisional art, where texts and participants become the material of performance in a dialectical process. It may be, in the present situation, that there are no pure local identities any longer--if there ever were. A country that is built upon colonization must be seen in the act of continually devising an identity for itself. How else to represent such acts if not by following the same provisional path? Ephemerality is always being denied through text. Maori only have an oral tradition, and written fixed text--even if it preserved their own language--was used as a colonizing instrument on them. Their tradition of performance can be seen as devising and re-devising their cultural identity in a constant process through the generations. Perhaps we can learn from the Maori, and not just in New Zealand. Perhaps it is time to see devised performance as a way of keeping the freedom as well as the relevance of the art, which is always fleeting . . . like identity, like life.

Free Theatre's work could be characterized as a constant search.   While Peter has staged many successful productions, he refuses to settle to one style, or to replicate these successes. Rather, Free Theatre moves onward in a spirit of true experimentation, taking with us our experiences, our training, and our trust in each other. It is perhaps this, above all, that has contributed to Free Theatre's vigorous longevity.

The Free Theatre Ensemble

A strong ensemble has developed through a series of projects under Peter's direction. The ensemble trains regularly, incorporating different styles, forms and media into their experimentation as a means of exploring whatever themes and ideas are central to the project at hand.

In many ways, Free Theatre's way of working may be closer in practice to New Zealand dance companies than current theatre practice in New Zealand. In the case of New Zealand dance, strong ensembles have engaged a variety of diverse forms and styles to develop innovative work that speaks to the notion of what it means to be a New Zealander - a role the established mainstream theatres have struggled to fill in the effort to maintain their core audience. It has been noted by many observers that this core audience for New Zealand theatre continues to fade away and that it is necessary to encourage and foster groups that produce new innovative performance work that is New Zealand focussed to attract a (new) New Zealand audience. Free Theatre offers just such an opportunity.

Free Theatre work engages with contemporary time and place as a means of engaging with our community, and we incorporate a diverse range of forms and styles of movement and performance in order to do so.   For example, the company has worked with exponents that have trained in everything from Chinese Opera to martial arts, military training and Argentine tango and used this training to influence our work.

Training is an important part of Free Theatre work. In most cases, Free Theatre productions are 'physical theatre' in the sense that the starting point for each actor is not psychology (as in naturalism) but the body and voice. Training is therefore ongoing, even when no project is currently in rehearsal.

In keeping with the principle of collaborative ensemble work, much of the training involves exercises to assist the group in finding different ways of working together. Maintaining fitness is important, as is the development of physical and vocal ability. New disciplines are added to suit individual productions, and the training is also adapted as new people join the ensemble, to reflect the new shape of the group and to take account of individuals' interests and skills.

A set of working principles for each exercise allows for structure and, at the same time, the ability to vary and change exercises depending on the mood or focus of the ensemble. The exercises used in training have evolved from a diverse range of sources, including the theory and practice of Vsevolod Meyerhold, Bertold Brecht, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Richard Schechner, Augusto Boal, Eugenio Barba and Suzuki Tadashi. Training also includes yoga-based stretching, as well as tumbling and acrobatics.

As the company approaches a new project and begins to devise, training will evolve into a more focused and specific experimentation with form and themes. This allows the company to explore and to play with different styles and ideas evoked by the subject material the director has proposed. In this way, actors come to find a way into the work.   The physical form of the production may evolve directly from this phase of experimentation: the director maintains a close eye on the evolving work and then comes to structure, shape and rehearse the work in conversation with the actors and designer.  

Over the years we have worked with a number of different designers, including Richard Till, Chris Reddington, Paul McCaffrey, Lawrence Wallen, Mark McEntyre, Rudolf Boelee, Graham Bennett and Peter Robinson. The importance of these artistic collaborations cannot be underestimated in the development of Free Theatre's artistic and theatrical productions.

Free Theatre often uses spaces that may not be considered conventional for theatre, the choice arising from the ideas being explored in the performance. While the University Theatre remains the group's home base, we have staged projects in spaces all over and around Christchurch. More recently, Free Theatre has staged productions at the open performance space of Old Queen's Theatre at 120 Hereford St and the basement space of Nibelheim located under the Old Library in the Arts Centre, although performances have also been given in outdoor locations from Cathedral Square to the gun emplacements above Lyttelton.

The University Connection

Free Theatre's relationship with the Theatre and Film Studies Department at Canterbury University remains a vital part of its ongoing contribution to local and national performance culture. Indeed, Theatre and Film Studies grew out of the Free Theatre with demand for experimentation in theatre and film practice suggesting the need for a dedicated programme (established as a department in 1997), which has become, with an impressive number of completed and current PhD students, the leading facility for postgraduate performance and film research in the country.

Although Free Theatre has always maintained its independence from the University, it has kept a close association with Theatre and Film Studies for two principle reasons. First, the Department supplies in-kind support for Free Theatre (space and technical assistance) in recognition of Free Theatre's contribution to high quality research and teaching in the Department.   Second, the members of the current ensemble are, in different capacities, all involved in performance research, which helps maintain the integrity of Free Theatre's experimental spirit. Creating, writing about, and teaching theatre and film leads to a dynamic, exciting, mutually beneficial environment.

  - Free Theatre Ensemble, 2009