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27 Nov - 6 Dec 2009, University Theatre, The Arts Centre, Christchurch, The Body Festival
31 Aug - 11 Sep 2010, Bats Theatre, Wellington As the audience walk in, the performance has already begun. They are welcomed into a House of Illusions: the live music from a twin pianist and cellist is in full swing and the actors dance together on a small dance floor, centre of the stage. The performance (and the audience) are reflected back by large mirrors, and also on monitors, which show previously captured images from the town outside intercut with a live video feed from a roaming camera operator inside. The House of Illusion allows a potential for freedom from the outside world, but it is also constantly under surveillance.
Between tango dances and songs, the actors move to small dressing areas at the edge of the stage, and prepare for a series of performances, given for the audience and for each other: A bishop hears the Confession of a young penitent, and gives absolution and penance. As the scene reaches its climax, it is interrupted: the Bishop is not a Bishop, but a client in a brothel; A judge hears the testimony of a thief, who is consequently punished severely by an ominous masked figure; A camp commandant trains his "horse" - a young woman who must be disciplined and properly put through her paces; A woman sings soulfully in remembrance of times past; The thief sings for the camp commandant, and in reward is given the head of her torturer in a box. Throughout actors reflect on what is going on inside and outside the theatre, addressing the audience, blurring the lines between actor, character and spectator. The play ends as actors invite audience members to join them on the dance floor.
Cartoon by Jitterati, Capital Times, 1-7 September, 2010
ResearchMarian McCurdy used Distraction Camp as material for her PhD research Acting and it's Refusal in Theatre and Film Canterbury University, 2014 later published by Intellect Books as Acting and it's Refusal: The Devil Makes Believe.
Interviews and ArticlesInterview with the cast at BATS Theatre, Wellington
Laura Frykberg, TV3's Nightline (see clip below) MediaLynn Freeman comes to a rehearsal
Lyn Freeman, RNZ, Arts On Sunday, 22 November 2009 Preview George Parker, The Press, 27 November 2009 Free Theatre Christchurch Presents... Distraction Camp Presto, December 2009 The Theatre as Counterpublic: From The Balcony to Distraction Camp Peter Falkenberg, Psi 16, Performing Publics, 9-13 June 2010 A House of Illusions Citylife Independant Herald, Wed 25 Aug 2010 Camp Concentration Tom Fitzsimons, The Dominion Post, Thursday, 26 August 2010 Eva Radich interviews Emma Johnston and Peter Falkenberg Eva Radich, RNZ, Upbeat, 30 August 2010 Tango, BDSM and the SS Press Release Bats Theatre, Monday 30 August 2010 
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ReviewsIt's a watchable piece, but the sermonising around the desperate attempts to find authenticity in our counterfeit, commercialised lives feels both heavy handed and contrived, as does the premise. The Free Theatre's latest work is ultimately beseiged by its profundity. 
The company work as one in a seamless flow but as it continues you begin to wonder if you have stumbled into a time before the theatre opened and are in fact witnessing the backstage warm up.... The exploration of power as discussed through this text shows its age. The inherent misogynistic representation of whore, virgin and crone of Genet was in addition exhaustingly nihilistic. Did we need to be dragged through this beautifully staged version of the bowels of our inhumane humanity?.... As the commandant is evicted from the brothel and ultimately the theatre, my companion and I just want to leave the theatre with him.... Running at just on 90 minutes it is not the time spent in the theatre that is tiring, rather it is the didactic, repetitive and depressing nature of the source text. 
I hand it to Peter Falkenberg and his cast for crafting such a theatrical account of intellectually complex concepts. This is not easy theatre to watch and understand, but it is interesting theatre. I wish there was more like it. 
...the question that arises for me around the work of Free Theatre is, why preoccupy yourselves with the works of rarely staged European playwrights when you could emulate them better by creating original work that might more immediately impact the work you seek to confront?.... I left Distraction Camp feeling this could only have come from Christchurch - it's a piece that somehow speaks directly to the contradictions especially inherent in that fair city - and Wellington theatre is the richer for sharing the puzzlement and pain of that paradox. 
...if you like your narrative cohesive, it's possible that this isn't the play for you. If however you're prepared for them not to be cohesive (and you're ok with the odd bit of S&M in your theatre) then by all means give Distraction Camp a whirl. 
...by using Genet's play, Free Theatre is distancing itself from an audience here who may be only vaguely aware of him as a playwright and feel that his allegory is too European, or even too old-fashioned and occasionally boring, for all its sensationalism. 
There is a real joy to be taken in the looking at of Distraction Camp. The show is very clearly aware of this and plays very much with the audience's complicity in the voyeuristic act.... This is a show that rides a line between being abstract and what some may see as self-indulgent. On which side of that line it falls is up to the individual audience member. 
Free Theatre's work is a million miles from the traditional NZ theatre fare of narrator driven scripts... Distraction Camp starts with a long slow ritual of the dancers cleaning the stage and it quickly becomes mesmerising as they move and breathe. This is a disarming production, it's a tough 90 minutes, dwelling as it does on relationships and morality, punishment and resilience. The cast is brilliant, the production meticulously acted and choreographed, and in an inspired ending, the audience has to make a choice. 
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