There are two memorable messages that bookend the first life of the stage play Things That Matter. Both came to me from Philippa Campbell, then literary manager of the Auckland Theatre Company. The first was an email in September 2016: “We’d love to have a conversation about whether you’d be interested in adapting something as a new play.” The other was a text message five years later, in August 2021: “There’s a very real chance that we’ll cancel.”
The text arrived on my dumbphone while I was in a Devonport cafe. I’d ferried over from the city to fill the gap between watching the final noon dress rehearsal of Things That Matter and the opening preview that evening. I’d noticed a few people on the boat staring at their smartphones with some concern, and in the cafe the same thing was happening.
I asked a stranger what was up. A Covid case. The new Delta strain. And then my phone beeped.
I had always been sceptical about adaptations. Why would anyone want to spend their precious, limited creative life reproducing someone else’s work instead of bringing new art into the world? Not my idea of a good time ‒ untiI I was invited to examine a PhD about adaptation. During the viva voce, the oral part of the examination, I’d thrown my question at the candidate. Why not create a new work of art? Their simple response: “But it would be a new work of art.” I’ve carried that answer with me ever since.
Over the 2016-17 summer, I re-read a few books I thought might translate well to the stage and found some new ones. Good characterful plot-driven Aotearoa-born stories. I sent my suggestions to Philippa and artistic director Colin McColl. Then I read David Galler’s Things That Matter: Stories of Life & Death. The worst possible choice by any measure except one. Lots of anecdotes, no plot, zigzagging across countries and decades, chapters organised around organs of the body, dozens of characters who came and went ‒ but brimful of humanity, compassion, anger and optimism, and possibly the most inspiring book I’ve ever read. There was no hope of transposing it directly onto the stage. It would have to be a new work of art. I added it to the mix, and received a response from Philippa: “The idea that captured Colin and me most is your suggestion to explore an adaptation around David Galler’s book. I’ve no idea how this would work theatrically, but the content is very rich.”
All I had to do now was figure out how to make it work theatrically, and pitch the idea to David, whom I had never met. The pitch document for that meeting has a distinctively aspirational tone. It’s important to me that the play is a new work of art, and does things that only theatre can do. It must not be the book acted out on stage, but it must clearly articulate the book’s truths.
Imagining the play written and staged, my ideal is for someone who has read the book then seen the play to see something completely unexpected but totally right. Nothing like the book but exactly like the book … I like to think that the true value of the play will be revealed when people argue about it in the bar afterwards.
There was also the note that our hero would be “an interpretation of the personality that emerges in the book, rather than a true-to-life biographical portrayal of the real David Galler.”
The pitch worked. David and his editor, Jenny Hellen from Allen & Unwin, gave us their blessing, and we got on with it.
Covid intervened. David became consumed with the affairs of the day, and we hunkered down in our homes. A message I sent to ATC reads, “If our two-weeks-ago selves could’ve seen today’s headlines it’d seem like the science fiction it used to be.” But we got through it, and for a while the coast seemed clear.
The first two drafts of the script underwent rigorous workshops, each read and interrogated for two days by a group of astute actors around the table. The second of these was led by Anapela Polata’ivao, who was now on board as director. One of the aspects that David had mentioned was the diverse Māori and Pasifika community that Middlemore Hospital served, and his wish that we “put a bit of wind behind those sails”. I was nervously aware of the climate in which I was trying to write voices that weren’t my own, and the actors who worked those roles were immensely helpful.
David also contributed, reading the second and third drafts of the script and writing copious useful notes. He also took the cast to Middlemore to get a sense of the environment, and led them through the locations where the medical events depicted took place.
Five weeks of intense, enlivening rehearsals, new ideas, script changes, the move into the ASB Waterfront Theatre ‒ then the chilling text in a Devonport cafe. I made it back to the city in time to see people leaving the theatre. The cast were gathered watching a televised announcement. The play was postponed, then postponed again, and finally the window closed. Cancelled. ATC’s 2022 programme was already confirmed, so ATC set its sights on 2023.
Many people commiserated with me afterwards, but my contribution existed in a solid form. It’s a fat, printed document that may well last longer than me. But a performance is ephemeral. The team of actors, and the technical and production crew who had dedicated so much effort to the play had seen their weeks of work evaporate.
Under the new artistic directorship of Jonathan Bielski, Things That Matter is back. Polata’ivao is back at the helm, and nearly all of the original cast have committed to another round. And I’m nervously awaiting the arguments in the bar afterwards.
Things That Matter, Auckland Theatre Company, ASB Waterfront Theatre, August 12-27.
