Things That Matter finally makes it to stage, two years after being a lockdown casualty. Its suppression only makes the messages more immediate and confronting.
Based around the memoirs of David Galler, an Intensive Care Consultant at Middlemore hospital for about thirty years. An advisor to the Health Minister and Director-General of Health. The adaptation for theatre was written by Gary Henderson.
The production was aborted at the last minute when a long-term gulag quarantine was imposed on Auckland in 2021. It is a tribute to the Auckland Theatre Company that they could resurrect the play and call on many of the original crew, including director Anapela Polata’ivao.
The play is set in the confines of a hospital. They are minimalist and bland by necessity, and public ones have an air of unavoidable authoritarianism around them. I’m trying to avoid using the term Totalitarian, when the emphasis on the production is humanitarian and compassion. But that is present and informs the heart of darkness that squats at the centre of the medical profession like a black hole of consciousness. I will come to that later.
We first meet Rafael Beckman (Ian Hughes) as the medical head of the emergency department and intensive care, mustering the team around him.
The production design is spare and functional, with large transparent curtains and an array of electronic monitors overhead. They can also project movie images as a backdrop.
The team swing into action as a large comatose man is wheeled in. The principals are resident doctor Edie (Jen Huang), junior doctor Dev (Shann Kesha), charge nurse Carol (Nicola Kawana), and staff nurse Ana (Stacey Leilua).
The acting is a smooth an authentic representation of what does happen in emergency rooms. Cool and controlled, with a lack of drama and histrionics. The patients’ relatives supply this.
At the introduction, the topical news stories are pushed to the fore. The hospital is over its capacity. The ambos’ are stacking up. There is a junior doctors strike. The information is received as combat instructions to the terrain that you must deal with.
Hospitals are like police stations. You feel like a team in combat with the outside world.
This is a play with two parallel stories. The older and much darker one does inform the main narrative.
Dr Galler is of Polish Jewish descent. Both parents survived Auschwitz. The play really has two centres and the challenge for the audience is to be open to the revelations.
Rafael’s father Leon Beckman (Greg Johnson) keeps imposing himself unexpectedly. We do eventually find out why.
The first family scene is a dinner where the prodigal son is fussed over by his Jewish mum Roza Beckman (Donogh Rees). She is a chain-smoker, and she has a progressive cancer.
Both actors stand out amongst a great ensemble performance. This narrative broadens the main political themes running through the production.
The doctor inhabits both the world of the family, and the role of the committed health professional.
The demon’s name Mengele is invoked. We are taken on a heart of darkness journey into Auschwitz and the disturbing revelations that continue to emanate. Step too close to a black hole and you cannot escape being pulled in.
The Nuremberg codes of humanitarian conduct were established after the eventual fall of the Nazi regime. These established human rights were trampled on by many countries including this one, in the wake of 2020.
It is interesting to note that no one gets to wear a mask on stage.
Three patient stories are handled with acute, revealing insights. We can relate to the relatives’ anguish, and we are brought into the daily world of the overburdened health professionals.
The supplementary story is represented by the character Matheson (David Aston). He plays the Health Minister in a Yes, Minister fashion. While Rafael gets to the heart of the matter with reasons why the catchment population of his hospital is so dire, he is met with a type of passive resistance stonewalling.
This is a Catch-22 cycle. Politics is the art of compromise and polishing turds. It is essentially theatre.
Things That Matter is theatre within theatre wrapped around a dark core. Overarching themes are more than offset by the individual stories of people coping with disasters and the human elements of the Health System. The great triumph is ultimately in the family stories, including the doctor’s.
Rev Orange Peel
Things That Matter plays from 12-27 August 2023 at ASB Waterfront Theatre
Tickets available from Auckland Theatre Company