The living arts Theatre exchange

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 15

The living arts

Theatre exchange

Exchange between theatres on both sides of the Tasman is very important, a guest director at the Court Theatre, Aarne Neeme, believes. “New Zealand and Australia are neighbours and there should be a better understanding between them,” he says. Mr Neeme is visiting New Zealand for three months on a Tasman fellowship. He is with the Court Theatre to direct the production of Robert Lord’s “Unfamiliar Steps,” a sinister comedy set in an inland New Zealand town, which opened in the Southern Ballet Theatre in the Arts Centre last evening.

After his Christchurch visit he will head to Auckland to direct a play for the Mercury Theatre. He also plans to work on projects with students at the New Zealand Drama School and at the New Depot Theatre in Wellington.

Mr Neeme’s career in theatre started in 1963, when he joined the Emerald Hill Theatre company in Melbourne. After completing a degree in drama at the University of New South Wales, he moved into directing. He has worked with university theatre, the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney, the National Theatre Company in Perth and the Hunter Valley Theatre Company in Newcastle. In 1978, he won a Churchill Fellowship to visit Europe and England. More recently he has

worked as a freelance director, and last year he was the artistic director for the Australian National Playwrights’ Conference.

Mr Neeme, who is the first director to visit the Court under the Tasman Fellowship, says the award was set up by the Tasman Foundation about a year ago with the aim of improving relations between theatres in New Zealand and Australia.

The first exchange would be of directors, administrators and actors. In the future it was hoped that production teams could be exchanged between theatres in the two countries. Eventually it might be possible for entire productions to be swapped.

He adds that until the 1950 s there was a lot of exchange between Australia and New Zealand because of the existence of big touring companies like J. C. Williamson’s. Since those companies disappeared, the two countries have lost touch with each other.

He says it seems sensible to have a greater understanding and co-ordination between theatres here and there. It would lead to a better understanding of local plays, a crossfertilisation of ideas and approaches. It is always useful for theatre personnel to move around.

Mr Neeme says that theatre in New Zealand

compares very well to Australian theatre. “There is five times the population in Australia, but there certainly is not five times as much theatre.”

From the little he has seen on his visit so far, he believes that the standards in New Zealand theatre are “excellent.”

One difference he has noted is that New Zealand theatre is more English than he is accustomed to.

“Over the last few years Australian theatre has become much more distinctively Australian in style. Twenty years ago, when I started, the English influence was strong. Now people accept the ‘Austra-lian-ness’ of talking. That is a real advancement, because we are not trying

to imitate a foreign culture.”

He believes that trend has started in New Zealand. New playwrights, like Greg McGee who has “a tremendous amount of potential,” are now creating a distinctive style of New Zealand acting.

He believes that both Australian and New Zealand theatres suffer from a lack of “strong middle-of-the-road” actors. Although their best actors are on a par with the best actors from anywhere else in the world, he sees a big gap in both countries between the good actors and the “up-and-comings.”

“I think it is to do with the difficulty of finding work. So many actors give up when they are in their thirties because the life is too hazardous,” he says.