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Free Theatre Christchurch takes inspiration from Alfred Jarry (1873 - 1907) and his inimitable Ubu. Jarry is considered the precursor to and inspiration for significant art movements of the 20th Century including Dada, Surrealism and Futurism. Jarry's most famous invention, Ubu Roi satirises the complacency of a greedy, hypocritical, pompous and stupid bourgeoisie character called King Ubu. The character was based on a physics teacher Jarry had at school when he was 15 whom him and his friends despised and made much fun of.
Jarry developed what he called Pataphysics, perspectives that went beyond the metaphysical in search of 'imaginary solutions' - breaking free of aesthetic, cultural and social conventions in search of the new and the previously unconsidered or unknown. Pataphysics influenced a diverse range of philosophers and artists including the Surrealists and Dada artists who considered Jarry their patron saint to the Marx Brothers, artists of the Theatre of the Absurd and Artaud. In theatre, Jarry's inventive vision helped inspire a movement of 'Free Theatres', which looked to break with convention in search of a theatre that was as relevant (or more so) as the sciences. The Théâtre Libre in Paris and Freie Bühne in Berlin is where amongst others modern theatre was born. With Ubu as our patron saint (see logo right), Free Theatre Christchurch continues in this tradition of breaking with conventions in order to create a theatre relevant to our time and place. Never fixed, always seeking out the new and uncharted, Free Theatre productions provide unique experiences of alternative ways of thinking and living. Free Theatre performed Jarry's play King Ubu in 1982, and decades later a series of regular Ubu Night performances (2014-18) in The Gym in the Arts Centre were inspired by Jarry. 
Ubu Ubu Night (2014)
Manifesto
Below is the original Free Theatre Christchurch Manifesto (written in 1982). Click on image to view:
I conceive theatre as a magical operation or ceremony, and I shall strive to restore to it its primitive ritual character Why are we concerned with art? To cross our frontiers, exceed our limitations, fill our emptiness - fulfil ourselves. This is not a condition but a process in which what is dark in us slowly becomes transparent. |
Pataphysics will examine the laws governing exceptions, and will explain the universe supplementary to this one; or, less ambitiously, will describe a universe which can be – and perhaps should be – envisaged in the place of the traditional one… Pataphysics is the highest temptation of the mind. The horror of ridicule and necessity lead to an enormous infatuation, the enormous flatulence of Ubu... The pataphysical mind is the nail in the tyre – the world, a puffball. 
Presentation below by George Parker, who performed as Ubu for Free Theatre Ubu Nights, at a PechaKucha evening in The Gym in 2015: Christchurch through a pataphysical lense Towards a Free Theatre...Other artists that have inspired Free Theatre's work:
...actors are needed who are spontaneous and authentic, in touch with reality through and through. Let us note that there are many theatre audiences, or at least two: that of the intelligent, small in number, and that of large number… We pin our hopes on the sporting public. Drama should be without beginning or end, like everything else here on earth If everyone had to go to the theatre, things would be totally different. If everyone praises your production, almost certainly it is rubbish. If everyone abuses it, then perhaps there is something in it. But if some praise and others abuse, if you can split the audience in half, then for sure it is a good production. Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies. The theatre, to evolve and become alive, must come out of itself - must cease to be a theatre. ...it's a ceremony, it's a ritual... |
Writing about Free Theatre work by artists, academics and the media - a selection
(see Productions 1979-Present for complete material relating to each production)
N.B. Free Theatre had a long connection with the University of Canterbury.
See The University Connection for more.
See The University Connection for more.
...the desire 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. 
Footprints/Tapuwae (2001 and 2015)
"Here be Taniwha: performance research on the edge of the world"
George Parker, Embodying Transformation, 2015 The Last Word
George Parker, Playmarket Annual 2016 
Distraction Camp (2009)
"The Theatre as Counterpublic: From The Balcony to Distraction Camp"
Peter Falkenberg, 2010 Acting and its Refusal in Theatre and Film
Marian McCurdy, PhD 2014 *Marian wrote about the Free Theatre productions Faust Chroma and Distraction Camp in her thesis, later published as a book Acting and its Refusal in Theatre and Film (2017) 
Enigma Emmy Goering and Nico Sphinx of Ice (2008)
Only Free Theatre in Christchurch maintained the same trajectory, and the group is still active today after four decades, operating at the opposite extreme to the Court (the city’s repertory theatre). Like the burst of post-object art in the 1970s, the work of these unorthodox groups anticipated later developments, but except in Christchurch they have been largely forgotten. 
Remake (2009)
"Nothing Ever Happens Here"
Peter Falkenberg, 2007 "Remake: Parker-Hulme and The Maids" Marian McCurdy, 2007 
Ella (2004 and 2009)
"Seeing 'new' seas/lands from the beach"
(Conclusion to PhD thesis: 'Actor Alone: Solo Performance in New Zealand') George Parker, 2007 *George discussed Free Theatre's Ella (2004) in his PhD thesis. "The Last Word"
George Parker, Playmarket Annual Journal, No. 51, September 2016 
Samson Airlines (2002)
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. "Fear of Flying (I): Samson Airline"
Peter Falkenberg, 2005/2006 "A National Theatre in New Zealand? Why/Not?" Sharon Mazer, Theatre and Performance in Small Nations, 2013 
Crusoe - A Lapsarian Mass in 9 Movements (1998)
"Lacking Drama, Making Theatre: Why Can't Robinson Crusoe Play?"
Peter Falkenberg, 1998 "Lacking Desire/Making Drama: The Theatrical Meets the Prosaic in a Post-Puritanical World" Peter Falkenberg, Degrés Fall/Winter, 1999 Seeing Friday: Problems of Perception and Reception in Post-Colonial Theatre
Greta Bond MA, 1998 Watching the Savages Dance: Problems and Possibilities of Creating Post-Colonial Performance in a Bi-cultural Country Michael Cusdin MA, 1998 The Return of the Repressed: The (Dis)appearance of the Bodily in the Post-Colonial Performance of Daniel Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' Kate McAnergney MA, 1999 *Greta, Michael and Kate used material from the Free Theatre productions of Robinson Crusoe (1996) and Crusoe (1998) in their theses "Lacking Desire/Making Drama: The Theatrical Meets the Prosaic in a Post-Puritanical World" Peter Falkenberg, Degrés Fall/Winter, 1999 "Lacking Drama, Making Theatre: Why Can't Robinson Crusoe Play?" Peter Falkenberg, 1998 
Leonce and Lena (1984)
Free Theatre acquired its lease from the Arts Centre under the special condition that it would not double up the activities of the Court Theatre, but that it keep to its brief to be experimental and alternative. The Free Theatre therefore cannot escape into the commercial material that gives more of a guarantee of financial returns, as the Court Theatre or other amateur theatres in Christchurch do. 
Canterbury Tales (2013)
A Constant Magic: Explorations of Magic and polyphasic consciousness in recent Theatre and Film
Liz Boldt PhD, 2017 * Liz used material from the Free Theatre production of Doctor Faustus (2010) Frankenstein (2016) and Faust Chroma (2008) in her thesis. |
Canterbury Tales (2013)
People want to be reassured by performances of resilience. Looking at it in this light, resilience becomes problematic. It could be that the arts and theatre can become complicit with the ruling ideology, and will become service providers like the counsellors and psychologists who are employed after a catastrophe. Only good news is allowed. This is an old predicament for those of us who make theatre. We always have to decide if we want to become part of an entertainment industry, or if we consider art-making in the theatre as part of a larger emancipatory process. Schiller says that only where we play can we be free and fully human. If we are not free, how can we play? Perhaps we have to think about replacing resilience with another word: resistance. "After the Rupture: Restoration or Revolution"
Peter Falkenberg and Thea Brejzek, Performance Research 19 (6), 2014 "Creative thinkers engage with real world problems"
Ryan Reynolds, George Parker and Peter Falkenberg, The Press, 18 November 2013 
Leonce and Lena (1984)
The Free Theatre has not been welcomed to the Christchurch drama scene with open arms. It has been seen by some as a threatening competitor and by others as too "way out". 
Make-up Ground Down (Thompson, 1983)
The Christchurch Club of the privileged holds tightly together and clobbers anybody who threatens its exclusiveness. Nothing must ever change. Theatre and the arts are just another monopoly that has to be protected. 
The Earthquake in Chile (2011)
"Quake space as avant garde time"
Peter Falkenberg, PSi 2013 – Stanford University "Free Fall" Philip Matthews, The Press, 7 October 2011 
Faust Chroma (2008)
Hamletmachine (1991)
Electra (1984)
Some of the most exciting theatre in Christchurch.... Free makes up in exuberance what it lacks in smoothness. This has risks. Their production of 'Mahagonny', for instance, was decidedly more enthusiastic than polished, but Brecht can stand rough edges. It was in their recent production of two short plays by Sam Shepard that Free demonstrated how brilliantly such risks can pay off.... The term "Free" theatre refers to the German tradition of socially critical drama. 'Action' didn't send its audience out to burn down Christ's College across the road. But it did break down traditional audience expectations of theatre. It left them disturbed, disoriented, at odds. Something new was at work in the hallowed, tourist-enticing walls of the Arts Centre. 
Christmas Shopping (2005)
"Moving Targets: An "Illogical" Theatre of Resistance in (Pre)Occupied Territory"
Ryan Reynolds, 2007 *Ryan discussed several of Free Theatre's political theatre productions in his PhD thesis later published as a book, including Samson Airlines (2002) and Christmas Shopping (2005). 
Hereafter (2012)
Between Liminality and Transgression: Experimental Voice in Avant-Garde Performance.
Emma Johnston, PhD, 2015 *Emma used material from the Free Theatre production of Hereafter (2012) in her thesis 
Doctor Faustus (2010)
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