Why Make Theatre in the South Pacific?

In “Why Make Theatre in the South Pacific?” David O’Donnell, in what he describes as a “personal view,” recalls a performance of Foreskin’s Lament that took New Zealand’s obsession with rugby both literally and symbolically, eliminating the barrier between stage and house and displaying for a “stunned audience” a “culture defined by male aggression [and] an obsession with violent sport and political division.” O’Donnell asks: can a theatre help define a nation? He speaks of a theatre offering “the risks of experimentation, the joy of the avant-garde, and the challenge of new perspectives.”