<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>0:06 i um got into theatre as a kid <,> pretty much when i was fourteen my mum took me to drama classes but theatre at large was founded in nineteen ninety when i met anna marbrook or i'd met her previously but we founded theatre at large in nineteen ninety in auckland inhales and er <.>i i'd been in australia prior to that training at a mask and improvisational school called the drama action centre oh yes <{><[>mhm <[>inhales and um <,> voc i was interested in forming a company and was looking for someone to do that with and um both anna and i were interested in kind of making some a form of theatre that was <,> physical image based but told good stories inhales um much like some of the work i'd seen in australia and trained in and had been influenced from a lot from europe really a lot of that work from that that background inhales so we set up that company and began to work in nineteen ninety and that's principally been my work describe to us the sort of things theatre at large indulge themselves in it's a it's always a tricky question to answer what you know what is your own work mhm but <,> tut principally we're we've been interested in making theatre that's um exciting <,> theatrically inhales so voc initially we were interested in theatre that was more theatrical than the theatre we were seeing traditionally oh <{><[>okay <[>in in auckland and around the country would we dare call it contemporary yeah yeah? and that's what people are calling this kind of theatre now <.>m more often <.>they ey it was broadly called physical theatre for a period but people are tending to call it um contemporary theatre <{1><[1>inhales so i suppose that's a theatre that both has has a <&>2:00 text but not a <.>h not a complete emphasis on the text er linguistic text so the so the movement of the bodies and er um combination of body sound and lighting come together to make a inhales powerful theatrical image mixed with a text <{2><[2>inhales and in theatre at large we've blended that both with our own work created by the companies like tut and also with texts shakespearean um jacobean and contemporary and more recently um oscar wilde <[1>oh okay <[2>oh okay tut <{><[>oh how exciting <[>inhales exhales yeah okay um now the history of um <{><[>theatre at large they've done and um is there anything else besides those two <[>mm well those are the shows that <.>you we've done in wellington aha and we also made our first show here called which was in bats in nineteen ninety inhales er apart from that we've done a <.>l <.>d both of these shows and in auckland <&>3:00 um directed for a whole range of people including the new zealand drama school and um inhales voc other institutions both here and australia inhales voc so in theatre at large we've mixed a lot of teaching work also with our directing work inhales but the shows that we're known by that we act in and by we i mean anna and i act in as well as direct are that was done at taki rua and also um inhales and which is being shown at taki rua at the moment isn't it yeah that's right yeah and is that in cooperation with the fringe festival or not is that just solo yeah it is <{1><[1>it's the first show in the fringe festival <{2><[2>this year <[1>it is? <[2>oh on your perspective how do you think the show is going <.>i i think it's going very well it's a <.>r it's a reworked version this show was first seen in auckland in ninety two <,> tut where um it was very successful and voc the listener critic there voc thought it was the best show of ninety two we've reworked it with a new cast <&>4:00 since the original cast were overseas inhales we found a lot of voc more richness to it if you like it's a powerful show imagistically mhm but i think doing it a second time we're able to like explore more of the um voc detail and texture inhales these words are so kind of <{1><[1>hard to say without without seeing the show you've seen <{2><[2>it so though but if you haven't seen it it's hard to know <[1>mm laughs i know yeah <.>as <[2>yeah absolutely word yeah but it's a <.>d voc we were interested in exploring the kind of the royal the world of a court right not <.>spec it's based on henry the eighth's court but it could be <{><[>anywhere yeah <[>anybody right and er particularly the kind of the relationships between the king and his queens mhm inhales so <.>i in redoing it we've found more voc grit if you like and more um subtlety i think why did you choose acting as a career i'm considering myself more and more an actor director tut because i end up doing a lot i'm doing a lot <.>o more directing in fact <&>5:00 than i'm doing acting it's hard to know why <.>i i had some really strong memories of as a child of or at least when i began theatre why i was attracted to it swallows and i think particularly the sense of whanau you know <{><[>like family that was in the theatre inhales i remember being in this pantomime when i was twelve and just seeing all the actors like embracing each other and and thinking oh that's great <[>mhm <{1><[1>laughs i could have <{2><[2>some of that <{3><[3>laughs <[1>laughs <[2>wow <[3>laughs i want to be part of that yeah yeah and inhales voc er since then it's grown into being more um it's er it's a way that i can express my creative self really and voc with anna creating theatre at large we've been able to make theatre that people <.>i in new zealand at least have found very um refreshing mm we have had a sense that we are kind of leading the way somewhere so you had a lot of support though the community and family and particularly from our families who and also from people who are interested in in <&>6:00 seeing theatre move forward right because voc it's not traditional theatre so the people that are interested in seeing what <.>i what is the kind of next um next step if you like right have been very supportive <{><[>and that's that's been continually exciting <[>oh yeah so you're sort of <.>you're you're forever pushing and readjusting that borderline yeah and <.>i i think is definitely pushing that borderline let's talk about the cast and the characters within the play um and the ROLE changes that goes on like you say <.>the the the show's completely crosscast meaning that um men play the women's roles as in a shakespearean company and <.>the but the women play the men inhales the lead is henry eight and we use the numeral eight rather than the eighTH the roman <{><[>numeral <[>yeah to to make him a different figure if you like to say that it's not exactly him we're not telling history as it were right inhales and he he's played by alison bruce <&>7:00 who trained at er theatre corporate in auckland and then with the mercury theatre <.>f worked there for a long time mhm tut inhales and henry is basically um er wanting a male heir <.>o a son that he can pass on his kingdom to inhales and he is having great difficulty getting that out of his wife catherine of aragon tut which you play i play <{><[>laughs and um she <.>i in history at least <.>w is spanish exhales voc at least laughs she is spanish and was spanish and DID in fact have <.>prod difficulty producing a male heir she had female children but to the to the british monarchy they were pretty much <[>laughs mm useless inhales voc so he's he's mad with her and his his swallows sidekick if you like is cardinal wolsey who was the head of the church at that point the catholic church in england inhales he's played by anna marbrook the other director of theatre at large and she is um <,> swallows tut she he this is where it gets very <{><[>confusing wolsely is um voc desperately trying to maintain the state status quo so keep henry um help him produce a male heir but also keep him under wraps controlled inhales catherine has two maids and <.>these this is factual mary boleyn the sister of anne boleyn <.>a anne boleyn is the more infamous voc but in our reading we discovered she did in fact have a sister mary who had an affair with henry <[>laughs oh and this was kind of the beginning of the piece really thinking voc well if he she if he made love to both of these sisters there's a story in this inhales swallows mary is naive and um voc gets misled really <.>h she desires kind of a closer contact with the king but this gets out of hand and in fact it's her more um inhales <,> tut conniving if you <{1><[1>like sister anne who who makes her way to the top and eventually becomes queen inhales anne is played by jed brophy who's well known to wellington audiences and <.>m mary's played by tim spite also <{2><[2>another excellent wellington actor we were interested in exploring how these these the lives of these women were so ruled and and dominated by um tut sex really like that their gender and their sexuality was their only form of power in the court at that point inhales and we felt that in order to explore that in our in a in a good and strong way we needed to reverse the roles <[1>laughs <[2>mm tell us the future plans for theatre at large er we're be writing a new play when we get back to auckland with a with a new company we kind of write our work with the company it's devised and written at the same time <{><[>mm <[>inhales the show's at this stage has a working title and it's um gonna be a love story between an irish vaudevillian performing artiste and a maori chief in the um eighteen sixties set about the time of the new <&>10:00 zealand wars inhales and um swallows it basically tells the story of this love affair that takes place while these people are touring around the country with the first pakeha theatre company is there any maori input in the play yeah? we have a kaumatua te warena taua from auckland museum tut he's acting as a guide for us on that inhales we're mixing it in some ways in that we use we <.>m we're creating this story so it's not factual in in much the way that was done right so we're looking for something that is of the period but not <{><[>exactly tied to it <[>word right okay what direction do you want to take theatre at large tut are you forever challenging voc yourself <{><[><.>and er and the group <[>voc inhales <.>i i think um last year anna and i got a arts council grant to study in europe and we did some excellent study there with a a <.>fr a french teacher a man called gaullier inhales and that work has had a big influence <&>10:00 on us swallows and i think that will be the next emphasis inhales is is powerful theatre both in a physical sense and a um emotional <.>se it's kind of it's it's hard hitting if you like mhm i think inhales and i think the next show will be um voc emotionally um more <.>r richer and subtle and um <.>f you know and a love story i mean there's not a technique particularly that i want to explore right in theatre at large but i do want to make theatre ALWAYS make theatre that impacts on people inhales voc i want the next story to have er er tug on the heart <&>11:38 <&>end of sample