There are two ends of the performance-art continuum:

1. Poets who have convinced themselves, or been convinced by their mentors, that their words are the only important thing, and so deliver said words in flat monotones, without intonation, sans facial expression, poem after poem after bloody poem.
2. Those who think their words deserve spirit and so deliver them with panache, with verve, with eye-contact and resonance and nuance. And yes, even humour.

Examples of the first: Two-thirds of the poetry readings you’ve attended in the past decade. Of the second: The Auckland Writers Festival, Philomena Cunk, and now, Lucy O’Hagan.

Lucy O’Hagan is a doctor as well as author. This makes her less likely to have presentation skills than if she were an actress. But she bills the launch of her book, Everything but the Medicine,a performance. A performance, not a reading. She calls it Inside the GP Consultation.

And Doctor O’Hagan delivers. She performs. On the stage at Auckland’s Grey Lynn RSC  — nah, there is no stage; it’s the room above the pub — she stalks, she swoops, she pirouettes, she kneels to talk to imaginary children, she marches into the audience.

Ah, the audience. There are two ends of the book-launch-audience continuum:

1. A couple of strangers who wandered in from the street plus a hapless aunt dragged in by the author’s mother, and three or four bookstore employees whose boss has hissed, “Get in there and fill up those empty seats!”
2. A full house of wildly enthusiastic fans.

Examples of the first: Most of my own book launches. Of the second: The Auckland Writers Festival and Lucy O’Hagan.

And again, Doctor O’Hagan delivers. Instead of reading passage after passage from Everything but the Medicine, she creates a one-woman show, a show which she calls Inside the GP Consultation.. It could also be called, ‘A Morning in the Life of a Great General Practitioner.’

Lucy takes you into the over-full waiting room, introduces herself to the young mother, the silent farmer, the terrified woman who hides her terror with talk. She shows you the doctor — the outer doctor pleasantly engaging with her patients and the inner doctor falling behind schedule, not knowing what to do next, torn between difficult medical choices with life-threatening consequences.

Throughout the performance, the audience is enthralled — silent as stones in the moments of crisis, laughing out loud at the slapstick humour.

If you want to be part of the audience, Lucy O’Hagan will launch and perform in Wellington, Christchurch, Wānaka, Dunedin, and Ōtaki. Details on her (no surprise) excellent website Lucy O’Hagan – Doctor, Writer, Speaker, GP Teacher & Mentor website.  

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