Scoop Review: The Hollow Men

The Hollow Men
Adapted by Dean Parker
From the book by Nicky Hager
Directed by Jonathon Hendry

Bats Theatre
26 Sept - 11 Oct
8pm (1 hour 40 minutes)
Tickets $20/$13

Also at Centrepoint Theatre Oct 13 - 27

The Hollow Men covers the political rise and fall of Don Brash, with the spotlight on the spin-doctoring, hidden agendas and financial shenanigans that made it happen. Based (of course) on Nicky Hager's book, the play is something of a political procedural, laying out the inside workings of the campaign to put Brash at the head of the National Party and then win the 2005 election.

Stephen Papps plays Don Brash, a political novice shaped and accompanied by a representative trio of advisors: Peter Keenan (Michael Keir Morrissey), Bryan Sinclair (Arthur Meek) and Matthew Hooten (Sam Snedden). The rest of the highly varied characters - more advisors, friends, opponents and media - are played by Lyndee-Jane Rutherford and Will Harris. Keenan's Brash is clearly recognisable - and watching the approaches Rutherford and Harris take to various political characters (some played straight, some with energetic sillines) is entertaining in itself.

The fact that the play is based on non-fiction is of course one of the hooks - all these shady deals are our recent history. But in this case it also presents some theatrical problems. The bulk of the play is exposition, as the tight posse of advisors argue over or explain various tactics. And the dialog, mostly 'in their own words' (emails from Hager's book remixed into conversation or soliloquy), has moments of sparkle but tends to long speeches.

Much of what might be called 'action' in the play is also speeches - such as the Orewa speeches on race relations and welfare. The ideas are still as charged now as they were at the time and reviewing them in the light of the background that created them does shed an entirely new light. At the same time, Stephen Papps' presentation of Don Brash's uninspiring oratoric style is, especially in the intial speeches, almost too accurate to enjoy.

But overall, if the content is enough to catch our interest (and, in Wellington, it probably is) it's still left to the director and the cast to hold our attention.

Mixed in with the political documentary is the personal story of Dr Brash as he adapts to the world of image management into which he has been thrust. One is left to wonder about the extent to which he came to believe in policies and opinions that were at first only adopted in the name of political expediency.

The main relief from all those words, and most of the laughs (and the are a few) come with the characters that crop up during the campaign and Brash is by no means the least odd: one short scene consists entirely of a demonstration of his personal fastidiousness. Another, which includes a American neocon campaign guru forcing Don to sing the National anthem Maori, is hilarious.

Several scenes are memorable for their staging, giving variety to the talking heads - Brash faces away from us as he delivers a speech to (literally) shadowy party benefactors in the background; Sinclair and Hooten playfully sliding about on office chairs as they discuss positioning candidates for the religious vote. The presentation of Brash listening to a recorded Ronald Reagan speech - read Lyndee-Jane Rutherford in an adapted rubber Reagan mask - actually received a round of applause on Thursday night.

Figures rush around in the background between scenes, circulating among frames of walls, partly covered by translucent white material - amusingly suggestive of the figurative paper walls the compartmentalise conspiracies everywhere. Stabs of punk music that punctuate the changes also keep up the energy and seem appropriate to the rule-breaking young turks who power the campaign.

Having followed the last few year of politics, and the release of Hager's book, I'm probably not one to be shocked by any of the revelations in the play, or galvanised into action. New electoral laws are currently under consideration, with many of the games depicted in the play are being played on both sides of that.

But it was something of a revelation for the political junkie in me to have the whole thing laid out - the inner workings of a modern political campaign, from the slick to the shameless to the proably illegal - and with enough entertainment and variety to keep my attention. The politics told as a story, given flesh in theatrical form, hits home all the more.

The Hollow Men press release

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