Covid dramas in the spotlight
This month Stuart McKenzie’s verbatim play about New Zealand’s 2020 Covid lockdown is published. Now he’s working on the next act.
The Dominion Post reviewer of Transmission’s season at BATS Theatre said I owed the prime minister an apology.
Transmission is drawn from more than 20 hours of interviews with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson and epidemiologist Michael Baker, starting in March 2020 and including their contested decision to lock the country down to try and eliminate the virus.
Interviewing Jacinda, she asked me not to repeat something that happened to her as a young person. But in drama the personal is the universal. So I did include it . . . Sorry Jacinda.
I am a nosy bastard and I pushed into your private lives. Grant said the conversations were like a diary, given that he was way too busy to chronicle things himself. Michael said it was cheaper than psychoanalysis. Jacinda said, ‘‘I don’t want to make it about me.’’
Actually, I gave everyone a copy of how I wanted to use their words. And when Jacinda read her character asking for one particular story to stay confidential – and me saying, ‘‘OK, trust me’’ – she got the joke and burst out laughing. She said I could use it after all!
And so we did. It’s a great moment. There was always a collective gasp from the audience. They really feared I had betrayed her. And in thinking that, they instinctively understood it’s not only voters who deserve the trust of politicians, it has to go both ways.
Writing Transmission was a great joy and privilege. I am
grateful for the honesty, fearlessness and trust of these three people – and also the generosity and conviction of the other interview subjects, TVNZ journalist Mei Heron, and Moira Sa’imoa whose mother died during lockdown. Their stories give real insight into a fraught, confusing time in our collective experience.
I’m aware that there are many other stories that could’ve been told and perspectives given. My angle was shaped by my interest in the relationship between science and politics. Given further pandemics and global warming, the resilience of this relationship is vital for our societies.
When Miranda Harcourt and I were directing the show, our challenge was to get the right tone. If the drama veered into caricature the emotion was lost. So we arranged for the actors to meet their makers. Tim Spite visited Michael Baker in his home. When he arrived they both happened to be wearing the same shirt! Sophie Hambleton and Tom Knowles visited Jacinda and Grant at Parliament. The real people were just as nervous as the actors. But after those visits the actors’ performances changed profoundly.
These leaders battled emotions, made judgment calls, made mistakes and at times were overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. But they continued working relentlessly during the escalating turmoil and wild uncertainty, dealing with rapidly changing information, valiantly seeking to balance the conflicting needs and claims of diverse sectors of the community. I salute them.
Transmission ends on an upbeat note. At the time it seemed that the team of five million had vanquished the virus. We asked the PM what her theme song was that year. She said Elton John’s I’m still standing. We couldn’t get the rights to that. Instead the actors led the audience in a rousing version of David Kilgour’s Today is gonna be mine, another of the PM’s recommended tracks.
But time has undone my happy ending. Omicron and Delta got into the community. The Government’s strategy of elimination turned into suppression. The MIQ system became a nightmare for many people trying to return to Aotearoa. The vaccination rollout was often fraught and divisive. Health mandates and alert settings became confused. And in retrospect, Covid economic settings could be seen to favour those with money. A country which was briefly united in opposition to a virus now seems to be infected with resentment and conflict.
That story will be told in Transmission 2. I have continued interviewing the characters from the first play, as well as casting the net wider, including those caught up in the anti-vaccination protests.
The great thing about verbatim theatre is that it can evolve with current events – even while social unity goes backwards.
Time has undone my happy ending.
Published by Playmarket, Transmission the play script will be available from November 27.