The Road That Wasn't There

In the early days of this country - New Zealand - they drafted maps for proposed roads. These roads were no more than dotted lines drawn across the landscape - entire townships and settlements, all existing in theory alone. They were afforded legal status. Many were never built, the paths never sealed over. These roads exist, to this day, only as dotted lines drawn on long-forgotten maps; a landscape stitched across with places that might have been but never were.

It is too good of a concept not to use in some creative context and playwright Ralph McCubbin Howell certainly thought so.

Bats Theatre is one of the longest running and well-respected of the non-mainstream theatre venues in Wellington. The original building that housed the company, now owned by Sir Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, is undergoing earthquake strengthening. It's temporary venue is a converted bar on the second floor of a building near Wellington's slightly bohemian quarter. Before this it was a dingy student bar, before that another, equally grim, establishment. It has been heavily remodelled and re-purposed and is now quite open and expansive. Split off into two sections; one for the bar & ticket booth, and the other leads to a narrow brick-walled hallway, heavy with ducts, and then to the theatre itself which appears closely modelled after the original Bats' stage area. Most of the walls in the bar area are painted in rich colours. The ceiling above the waiting area is painted with clouds - it is old paintwork, probably there before the redesign and the clouds, though quite white and fluffy, have a trace of stormy grey in their bellies. The floor is still quite sticky underfoot...there is only so much that can be done, really. It is a damn good venue for fringe plays.

The set is built from a number of cardboard boxes. Skeins of old maps hang at the bag of the stage, everything looks weathered and sepia, a world of temporary things. One of the 'boxes' cleverly conceals a screen that, lit from behind, is used as a separate, smaller stage for scenes of shadow puppetry. There are only three actors but many fascinating characters. Oliver de Rohan takes the stage first of all, he introduces the main theme of the play with a clever introduction and then announces the first of a number of chapters.

Gabriel, the protagonist, works what appears to be a rather dull job in Australia (there is much humourous stamping of documents) when he receives a series of narrowly-missed phone-calls bidding him to return to the tiny township he left behind in New Zealand and attend to his mother, Maggie, who while always eccentric, has become increasingly troublesome in her later years. She has been stealing maps from all across the South Island, she has removed the handle from her front door, and she is becoming somewhat liberal in the use of a  rifle that she has in her possession.

Maggie's world is a series of fantastical tales that she has regaled Gabriel with throughout his life, but now it's looking as if she might be succumbing to dementia. Gabriel duly returns home and learns that there is one story that his mother has never told him, the story of his father (who left before Gabriel was born), and this story is to be no less fantastical than any of her other imaginings, however this one might just be true.

Turns out, when she was young (and her family very poor) Maggie headed out for a job sewing curtains at a remote estate, only she took a road that she'd never travelled before - a road that existed only as a dotted line on the map. It was there that she met Walter (her first love) and Walter's eccentric showman father - both with skin and clothing as white as paper and seemingly forever stuck in a time long ago and unaware of anything beyond the imagined township that they live in. But, of course, things do not run smoothly and this imagined road can only be accessed by a very specific map. In a fit of despair and rage, Maggie draws her own second map and creates a bad copy of the road that wasn't there. Thus she unleashes Retlaw (a flawed and inverted version of Walter) upon both her real and imagined worlds.

The scenes between present day Gabriel and Maggie are enacted by de Rohan and Elle Wootton respectively with McCubbin Howell gamely tackling every other role. Their performances are all superb, offering clever, well-developed and compelling characters.
The scenes from Maggie's youth and her adventures after taking the road that wasn't there are enacted by wonderful papier mache puppets (the work of unreasonably-talented director Hannah Smith). These puppets have rough, slightly primitive faces that are hugely expressive. Other scenes - the myths within the myths - utilise the afore-mentioned shadow puppets, cleverly echoing the different levels of truth and legend within the narrative.

The Road That Wasn't There is a play of myths, of imaginings, and of things that exist only in possibility. This is never more telling than in the character of the Blanket Man, a figure that exists only in Maggie's tale. It is this character that first tells Maggie of the paper road and who comes to her aid when she needs it most.

His real name was Ben Hana, though he liked to be simply called 'brother'. You'd see him around Wellington, his skin baked dark brown from the sun (or equally from accumulated grime). He wore only a loincloth and a filthy checked blanket that he often draped about his shoulders like a cloak. He was as skinny as the handle of a whip. Most days he'd sprawl on street-corners or stride around looking like something plucked from another time, another place. He was frequently drunk or stoned (or both), almost always incoherent. There were rumours about his past: he had an ex-wife somewhere, a family...kids, he'd slipped through one of societies' multitudinous cracks after accidentally killing a friend while driving drunk, once he disappeared for several months and rumours abounded that he'd died only for him to reappear in his usual haunt, unchanged.

Hana died a few years ago now: it was a combination of malnutrition and alcohol-related damage. His favourite spot on the street was briefly turned into a shrine, his blanket hung on the wall and messages scrawled across the brickwork. The phrase 'Blanket Man Lives' appeared on a wall near what is regarded as Wellington's oldest graffiti - the words 'Ian Curtis Lives' (though said phrase has had to be re-graffitied several times on several different walls). Ben Hana was a damaged, lost man; homeless, alcoholic. But, Blanket Man was a myth; a modern, urban legend - a mysterious figure about which you could speculate pretty much anything...

...and that is who he is in The Road that Wasn't There: a truth become a tale. It must also be said, the puppet really captures the essence of him.

And then there are the songs. Yup, The Road That Wasn't There has a strong musical component and all are beautifully sung. As Walter, de Rohan favours a soft, lilting tenor for an achingly sweet song (whose main melody reminds me a little of a Beatles number, for some reason), as Retlaw he drops his voice into a booming baritone to sing a number which sounds as though it could have come from the pen of Danny Elfman. Both other actors also sing and they too possess striking voices, sometimes joining together to make truly haunting harmonies.

Throw in a number of very humourous little scenes, some silliness with cats, a few moments of genuine dread, and an exquisite shadow-puppet telling of a legend from Queenstown's Te Rapuwai tribe and you have a hell of a lot of content for what is a fairly brief play.

Both times I saw the play the very last words (which are, incidentally, the title), paired with the gentle strumming of McCubbin Howell's acoustic guitar and the overall tone left me with a lump in my throat and a hint of mist in my eyes. Still don't entirely know why. But, it draws you in and hits you hard. It is a lovely work; occasionally menacing, often hilarious, and ultimately poignant. It should be seen by everyone who has a chance to do so and as the company Trick of the Light are currently touring, you might actually get the chance.

The Road That Wasn't There was originally performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2012.

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