BATS Theatre
October 3-7 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

ONE HOUR and forty minutes of four men (and one woman) in suits ranged across the stage talking politics and economics could be deadly dull. Adapted by Dean Parker from Nicky Hager’s book, The Hollow Men is far from it, and contains moments of humour as it depicts how the National party led by Don Brash managed to lose an election; coming so close to victory, only to throw it all away.

There are all the names and the allusions to incidents in recent politics, but, apart from the murmurs of recognition from the audience (themselves much older than BATS’ usual clientele) the power of the play is that it shows how little these individual details actually matter. The Orewa speech stands out; although we’ve heard it all before – the verisimilitude of the speeches is one of the play’s strengths – you could have heard a pin drop. Love it or loathe it, it’s a great speech, but as the bins on stage fill up with empty coffee cups and crumpled speeches, we realise that they are equally dispensable.

Modern politics isn’t about the details, it is about the personalities, and there are very few in this play. Perception becomes reality, and the job of the speech writers and the spin doctors is to make Don Brash appealing to the electorate. They instruct him to tell the public what they want to hear, but not to mention things they won’t like. They fill him with their ideas and pronouncements, and when he breaks, they throw him away.

In this version of events, he commits no greater crime than a love of the economy and an exaggerated faith in his advisers and his own potential. From the beginning, a suit hangs on a dress maker’s dummy and when it is switched to his shoulders, it is clear that he will be a construct. He is treated like a puppet, even to the extent of being guided around the stage with a hand in the small of his back like a ventriloquist’s dummy. He is gentle and domestic, as illustrated by a masterly sequence of stage business with a dustbuster and a pair of rubber gloves, but hopelessly out of touch with the modern world. His ham-fisted use of a cell phone when everyone else is texting and phoning at a whirlwind speed highlights his alienation.

This Brash is a reluctant politician; he can’t lie or evade questions. He attempts to appeal to business interests but his smart alec advisers, Hooton and Sinclair, tell him that monetary politics are dull, beliefs are boring, and spin is sexy. They tell him to be himself but this is the last thing they really want as they collectively coach him to be more presentable and try and stop him from making speeches. As far as they are concerned, charisma is the name of Mark Todd’s, and Brash needs to get more populist – like Winston Peters, for example. His appeal is his honesty and his reputation, but they take even that from him. He changes his politics to suit popular opinion but abandons his integrity along the way, becoming a mere shell. His plaintive cry “I am not a liar” feels like the denouement of a Shakespearean tragedy, and there is more than a hint of Julius Caesar in the crucible of the Beehive.

Don Brash is portrayed by Stephen Papps as a decent man, not suited to the cut and thrust of the political sphere. His gauche gestures are effective, with sloping posture, crossed arms, thoughtful frowns and a rubber face. He mops his neck with a handkerchief and rolls an olive around in his mouth with hints of Mr. Bean. He uses childish words like ‘crikey’, ‘golly’ and ‘fiddlesticks’. His awkward attempt to sing the National Anthem in Maori, illustrating his lack of empathy with the indigenous people of New Zealand, drew a spontaneous round of applause. It is surprisingly easy to feel sorry for this Brash, manipulated by others. He sits like a chastised schoolboy alone at the death of a party when the harsh lights come back up and the sycophants have moved on.

Sinclair and Hooton are played with boundless vigour by Arthur Meek and Sam Snedden respectively, racing across the stager on their swivel chairs in a new interpretation to the notion of spin. Meek plasters on a smile without substance and displays enthusiasm in a Tom Cruise, perfect teeth sort of way. Snedden is a bundle of nervous energy; he plays with his stress ball; examines his nails; takes his hands in and out of his pockets and fidgets in a manner which is evidently shifty.

Michael Keir Morrisey’s oleaginous Peter Keenan is New Zealand’s version of Sir Humphrey in ‘Yes, Minister’, but the biggest joke is that it’s true. He finds it hard to deliver the line, “Labour is poll driven. We are policy” with a straight face. Will Harris plays many parts – most notably Dick Allen (with a suspect American accent but unctuous effusiveness) full of platitudes about freedom and mushy nonsensical claptrap; Phil Goff barracking in the house about the nuclear policy stance; and Ron Hickmott of the Exclusive Brethren with excessive enthusiasm and pleading eyes.

The extremely adaptable Lyndee-Jane Rutherford plays all the female parts and Ronald Reagan in a mask. She briefly portrays Dianne Foreman, who is hardly in it, despite her public protests – perhaps she’s just not as interesting as she thinks she is. When National believe they need to be seen as more caring to appeal to women voters, they call in Sandy Burgham to organise a focus group. As the men line up against the wall like lads at a school dance, Rutherford makes full effect of her expressive facial features to wring every ounce of emphasis out of the fact that National is seen as a boys’ club.

Under scrutiny and bright lights, the men are positioned around the stage as interchangeable suits. Politicians become actors, held in freeze frame while introductions are made. The set works well with illuminated screens stretched between a grid of flats, allowing the actors to stand behind them and cast their shadows and silhouettes. One character lectures Brash, ‘Politics is war – choose your terrain’ and the flats are like a chess board. They resemble celebrity squares as Murray McCully insists “It’s a game!” and are employed on more than one occasion as a television screen.

The play is all about the presentation of image. There are no real people so we do not see the implications of any of the policies. Despite Brash’s increasingly hysterical insistence that his wife is from Singapore, she is never seen. There is no need to get personal, as his legacy is ephemeral. This could have been a dull presentation of talking heads hashing over old policies, but Barker’s adaptation is riveting, including loud bursts of music between scenes, which make it much more appealing as a play than a book. It is sometimes hard to separate facts from drama, but it is well worth seeing.

See also:
» The Hollow Men (Reviewed by Helen Sims)
» The Hollow Men: Film Review [A] [B]
» The Hollow Men: Book Review