“School sucks!” is a perfect line to start a high schools tour show with, especially in places where theatregoing as a relatively foreign concept. It’s from Thomas Sainsbury’s Loser and is the first extract from the 13 plays sampled to create A Baker’s Dozen: a veritable ‘taste treat’ smorgasbord of scenes to which the target audience cannot help but relate.

Directed by K.C. Kelly, a quartet of excellent actors – Matariki Whatarau, Yvette Reid, Elizabeth McMenamin and Fraser McLeod –play out 55 minutes of very human interactions in the simplest of dramatic forms: in the traverse, with the audience (150 max) sitting on the floor, a small collection of costume bits and props placed at either end, to be employed as the show progresses; no lighting or sound, just people in space engaging the imaginations of their audiences.

Produced and toured by EnsembleImpact, A Baker’s Dozen reminds us of – or introduces us to – contemporary New Zealand playwrights who have skilfully created strong characters in credible situations who grapple with the stuff that matters. And usually the more serious and insightful it is, the more humour plays a part, provoking the shocked laughter of recognition.

This extremely well crafted compilation is simultaneously compelling, entertaining and thought-provoking.

Loser’s bizarre depiction of a teenage girl trying to attract attention by ending it all in an apparently uncaring world is black humour at its best, compelling us to recognise the drama queen and/or sociopath in all of us and to ask ourselves where we stand when it comes to compassion for others.

In a world enveloped in dangerous smog, Gary Henderson’s The Big Blue Planet Earth Show finds two schoolgirls failing to take seriously the headmaster’s instructions on how to use a face mask, let alone his rallying cry for pride in a country that can afford to issue these masks to all while third world countries cannot.

A Mâori boy headed for prison, or a youth detention centre, is the focus for a father in Mauri Tu by Hone Kouka as he respectfully explains to us – the court, the hapu, a family group conference? – the need to hark back to the past in order to find our grounding now so we can move sure-footed into the future.  

When a sleeping Kiwi backpacker is woken by a French-speaking woman it turns out they are in Afghanistan and she’s just as fluent in English. She has met Kiwis in hostels and thinks the aChesdale Cheese commercial is a folk song. This inspired duologue by Dean Parker, and the next, between the Kiwi and the Californian girlfriend he claims to have tired of, go to the heart of freedom, responsibility, identity, ‘home’ and family in refreshing and challenging ways. It is a tantalising glimpse of Parker’s The Perfumed Garden, scheduled to premiere at the Court Theatre’s Forge in mid-July.

In Haruru Mai by Briar Grace-Smith, Paloma takes a stroppy and confrontational tack in trying to get to know Taku and discover his story. Why did an old man retrieve him from a ditch, after he’d been beaten up, and tell him he reminded him of the sea? The voice of contemporary New Zealand characters is captured perfectly and, as with all the scenes, this tantalising glimpse leaves you wanting to find out more.

A Pakeha perspective on the place of Mâori in the mid 1960s South Island is articulated by a boss character in Hone Kouka’s Waiora, truly nailing the entrenched, patronising and insidiously racist views of a man most would see as ‘a good bloke’ and a ‘decent’ employer.

As four mates on a road trip try to find their individual place in the world while making it as ‘one of the boys’, in The Cape by Vivienne Plumb, one discovers that another is battling cancer. This is a sensitive and powerful insight into a less-explored realm of male friendship.

From death we go to sex, as discussed between two girls, followed by a guy confiding his discovery that not bragging about how cool you are is a really cool way to pick up chicks. This is from Dave Armstrong’s Young & Hungry play RPM

By now the theatrical conventions are becoming less naturalistic and more sophisticated. In Fiona Samuel’s The Wedding Party, an insightfully true interaction between one girl making up another – “careful, your face is in my hands!” – is offset by a circling male, sharing his inner thoughts.

The domestic chore of folding washing is contrasted with a serious talk about justice, between a masters law student and the woman of the house he is boarding in. Jo Randerson also has them discussing the question of marital infidelity in this excerpt from The Unforgiven Harvest (which also explores parenting: do you reap what you sow?).  

In the boy’s boarding school David Geary has created for Lovelock’s Dream Run, two third formers – one in female drag and happily homosexual – negotiate terms with the headmaster for not letting ‘the incident’ go past the school. “House drama gets preference over rugby practice” is the priority for one boy. (Yes!)  

Pip Hall’s futuristic evocation of world where pervasive infertility has made breeding a matter of state control finds two very different young women answering invasive questions about their health records. The play is called Queen B.

The final scene – all seamlessly blended to the point where it is sometimes unclear we’re into a new play – is from Saving Grace by Duncan Sarkies. The enigmatic exchange between a man and young woman about trust, betrayal, love and choice brings together some of the key themes explored in this totally compelling 55 minutes of theatre.

A Baker’s Dozen follows last year’s She’ll Be Write, which extracted scenes from 16 plays to dramatise a history of NZ Theatre. I’d rate it as one of the most important things being done in the performing arts today, at any level. In the process of dramatising themes and topics that high school students relate too strongly, A Baker’s Dozen proves how relevant, accessible and efficacious theatre can be, while doubtless inspiring many to give it a go themselves.

Assuming our professional and community theatres want these young people to come to their shows too, and develop a lifelong theatre-going habit, all producers, directors, literary managers, dramaturgs and programming committee members active in theatres from North Cape to Bluff should make it their business to check it out at a high school near them.

Perhaps it will help them to realise – or remember – how may excellent playwrights we have in this country, and inspire them to produce more of their work, not least to attract a vast group of people who simply assume it’s not for them because it’s not about them.  

EnsembleImpact’s A Baker’s Dozen is a salutary reminder that this is what theatre’s all about.
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