Reading through the programme for Auckland’s biennial festival of the arts, struck with two thoughts: we have discovered avant-garde theatre; and it’s all so aesthetically pleasing, visually rich, hybridized, sexy, with striking branding… and samey. Makes one want to say: Here is a piece of shit, visually repellent, technically it’s a mess and there are too many words.
Auckland mayor, John Banks unwittingly sums up AK09’s place in our cultural ‘ecology’ (he doesn’t use that word, mind) in his obligatory puff-letter – as Auckland City Council is named as ‘Patron’ [caps, sic]:
Every successful city nurtures and stimulates a vibrant arts scene. The festival generates a fortnight of creative excitement and energy… [bigness and emphasis added]
Check out this photo of Auckland’s ‘young actors’ in an ensemble project called The Ensemble Project. Aren’t they well cosmeticked, diversely ethnicked of a variety of sizes but overall quite pleasingly bland? and aboveall they may appear in an ensemble project but don’t they project individuality and ATTITUDE. If they were in my production of an old sour ‘piece of shit’ I’d have asked them to crumble internally: Be pathetic! I’d have directed. Keep it futile! I’d have screamed, pathetically.
