As well as the content of The Great Art War, it was the location for the production that was equally alluring. I had heard about this exceptional space – The Court Theatre – conceived, constructed and opened only weeks after the quake, so I was adamant that I was going to experience it when I came to town for the Christchurch Arts Festival. 

I’m happy to report that the venue is as dramatic as expected and the staging for the show was equally theatrical, which we noticed as we took our seats. 

Being a bit of a philistine when it comes to musicals, I was pleasantly surprised when the show commenced. “I think it’s gonna be a good’n” I thought to myself as soon as I heard the tweeting of a Thrush, which was a great touch that opened the show. [More]

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The Christchurch Arts Festival could hardly be presented with a more appropriate gesture from the bastion of Canterbury theatre than this production, freshly minted from the collaboration of two acclaimed practitioners. 

Stuart Hoar’s work as a dramatist has established him as a leading exponent of New Zealand material and Philip Norman is thoroughly respected in the world of musical theatre. Their shaping of the eternal debate on the values of art, about what makes it important, to whom and why, is intelligent and engaging, but also sufficiently dispassionate to allow the audience its own wriggle room. Music, dialogue and action are in elegant balance under the careful direction of Melanie Camp.  

The context, structured around the life of Frances Hodgkins, is wonderfully localised for audiences in Christchurch where the painting which triggers the problems explored in the play is held. The painter’s career, which spanned four decades in the first half of the twentieth century, mirrors the changing face of art, as well as her own changing circumstances. Her uncompromising and driven personality imbues the play, but it is the interwoven plot charting the struggle to bring her mature modernist work, in particular ‘The Pleasure Garden’, to public attention which really fuels the piece. 

It will certainly tickle the reflective processes of Christchurch citizens faced with what art and aesthetic principles now mean for their lives and the public coffers. We are in the 1940s-50s, soon after Hodgkins’ death, and the Canterbury Society of Arts (CSA) is being urged to purchase a painting by the gifted modernist whose work had been by then acclaimed internationally. But neither personal persuasion nor all the strategies dreamed up by the lawyer Alan Brassington or Margaret Frankel of the CSA can overcome the rooted conviction of the CSA committee that the overtly modernist work in question, The Pleasure Garden,should not be purchased and ‘brought home’. 

Retrospective glimpses of the uncompromising Frances provide a counterpoint to the escalating tension of the opposing sides in the ‘war’ and are linked to the main plot by the shade of the painter herself as she appears to the journalist who is trying to present a neutral position. In the robust world of the play, the device works well, bolstering the central character without loosening the tension beginning to build around her work.

Eventually, and after public subscription (recorded in a fascinating facsimile in the programme) has secured the painting, after even its gifting to the City Council has been declined, a final ploy is attempted, which should not be revealed, for the delighted buzz of recognition from the Canterbury audience deserves to be repeated. 

As would be anticipated, production values are highly imaginative and flawlessly carried out, each aspect enhancing the others. In Julian Southgate’s set, towering Tiffany-like panels present the established ‘English’ face of Christchurch, allowing lighting from Joe Hayes full play. The design is echoed in costumes from The Costumery team of Pamela Jones and Pauline Laws, with clever creations confirming role and mood. Stephen Roberston’s choreography is fresh and judicious, for this is a production where razzmatazz is not what we’ll be remembering it for.

Rather, ideas, characters and situations are smoothly channelled through vigorous dialogue and music which ranges from, to quote Norman’s programme notes, “polite Edwardian rags and Elgarian anthems … to twitchy be-bop and the shake, rattle and roll of rhythm and blues.” Hamish Oliver at the piano and Juno Pyun on violin accomplish all very stylishly with sound design from Stephen Compton ensuring overall taste and clarity. 

And so to the direct movers and shapers of this charming event. There are six of them, working in an airy, uncluttered space, with only an easel and the odd projected image to help focus events. They fill the world admirably however, able to become the general public for example (though the audience is sometimes reminded of its own role in that direction). Each presents astute realisations of each distinct character. 

Fighting for the recognition of Hodgkins as an artist and the purchase of her painting, Robert Tripe as Alan Brassington and Delia Hannah as Margaret Frankel are full of conviction and, where necessary, guile. The latter role is doubled with Dorothy Richmond, gentle companion to Hodgkins, so there cannot be much breathing space in between. 

On the other side of ‘great art war’, determined to see disorderly and ‘meaningless’ art stuff kept well away from his most traditionally English of cities, Philip Aldridge presents a deliciously indomitable William Baverstock with a very funny side-dish in the depiction of an obfuscating critic. In this he is helped by Amy Straker (whose full role is noted in the next paragraph).

Alex Walker is similarly versatile in his doubling of Scotty the journalist and Wilby, who almost manages to whisk Hodgkins away from her canvas into marriage. As Isabel, married sister to Hodgkins, Amy Straker authoritatively personifies the rigidity of such social structures and what they mean for artistic freedom. 

At the centre of it all, and linking the personal and public narratives, Juliet Reynolds-Midgley is a delight. She captures the vulnerability as well as the driven assurance of the painter. As with all the cast and in various musical combinations, her singing lifts the moment and our experience of it. 

All in all then, this musical dramatisation, commissioned by Canterbury Arts and Heritage Trust, relates to us on several levels: the story, the struggle, the paraphernalia of change. It makes for a fine piece of theatre and a strong statement about the arts in our world.

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