Drama

"The Wide-Open Cage" by James K. Baxter: Unity Theatre now.

Reviewed by Cathy Wylie

Baxter's plays were ignored by most of his mourners — they weren't an obvious part of the pied-piper he played in the last few years. The playwright Baxter is warmly perceptive. A rather more humble, doubting love than the patronising 'aroha' of his father-figure mask gives his character a rich humanity.

His plays are by no means wholly satisfying. He is often melodramatic (as in 'The Day Flanagan Died', 'The Devil and Mr Mulcahy') and far too anxious to give his plays a neat ending, often before he has exhausted his theme, or in 'The Wide Open Cage', it is as if he feels that the dramatic structure might not stand the strain of the digging operation he has in mind. His final acts are often overfull and overactive because of this wrapping-up urge.

The restless and feeling exploration of human nature is both the touchstone of his plays and their downfall. At this stage (1959) Baxter had no Messages to Communicate, so his search for God in man, and his love of the quirks of the mystery he finds, are either laced with loving humour or as in this play embraced with an almost terrible, but hardly arrogant, compassion.

Other less sure writers use 'society's derelicts', partly at least to attract an audience by pandering to their feelings of superiority (e.g. Max Richards uses lesbians in 'Night Flowers'). Baxter can present Hogan the alcoholic and Norah the Maori pro as credibly as Scully's landlady or the two pimply adolescents — none are simple stereotypes to be sold down the line, making easy figures of fun. Baxter's unfinished, uneven play has the ability to move and unsettle because his perception of the 'human dilemma' is neither analytical or slick.

Richard Campion, who directed the premiere 12 years ago, and again at Unity returns with a carefully chosen cast who work together for a strong impact. Minorcriticisms could be made, but would be no more than academic quibbles or footnotes. A production so in tune with the feeling of the text, and it is a 'feeling' play above all, is rare indeed, and far more fitting a homage to James K. Baxter than any public tearjerking.