9-19 April 1997, University Theatre, The Arts Centre
Somewhere in the room of memory the family sit: the Father, the Mother, the Daughter and the Maid(s). They go through the rituals and niceties of hyper-bourgeois existence when suddenly their toing and froing, their smiling and squirming are stopped dead by noise.

They move with as much lock, stock and barrel as they can carry to set up the basic comfort of home in the next room. They escape the noise, for a while, but they cannot escape a figure in the corner, in the dark covered in bandages, cowering and limping, shaking and aching from many and daily beatings: the SCHMÜRZ.

​Somewhere someone is being beaten and somewhere someone is laughing. Through it all the message is love, understanding and tolerance of others and what's funny about that?

Articles

Briton on staff of art academy
Christchurch Star, Friday February 28, 1997

Fleeing From Fear
Howard Keen, The Press, Wed April 9, 1997

Reviews

It is time for us to pay our dues to the Free Theatre. Though it leaves itself open to criticism, its essential commitment to theatre as a creative and dangerous art form marks it out amidst the blandness of the Christchurch theatre scene.

'The Empire Builders' at University Theatre
Alan Scott, The Press, 14 April 1997
Tight direction and disciplined performances keep the audience involved and The Empire Builders doesn't fall into the alternative theatre trap of equating obscurity with merit.... The production was fascinating, challenging and thought provoking. Better than Oprah.

​The Empire Builders
Jo McCarroll, CANTA Issue 7, 16 April 1997​